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Placer Mining 

A HAND-BOOK FOR KLONDIKE AND OTHER 
MINERS AND PROSPECTORS 

WITH 

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS REGARDING THE RECENT 
GOLD DISCOVERIES IN THE YUKON VALLEY, THE 
ROUTES TO THE GOLD FIELDS, OUTFIT RE- 
QUIRED, AND MINING REGULATIONS OF 
ALASKA AND THE CANADIAN YUKON. 

ALSO 

A Map of the Yukon Valley, Embracing all the Information 

Obtainable from Reliable Sources up to 

December ist, 1897. 




scranton, pa. 
THE COLLIERY ENGINEER COMPANY 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED 



, 

r 



4357 



Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year. 1897, by The Colliery 

Engineer Company, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, 

at Washington., 



PREFACE. 



The demand for this book is the excuse for its appearance. 
Thousands have rushed off to the Klondike, not only ignorant 
of the first principles of placer mining, the only occupation 
at which any one can make a living in that region, but also 
almost entirely ignorant of the nature of the country into 
which they went. It is said that not more than 5 out of 
100 of those who started for the Klondike in the fall of 1897 
had any better information as to how to reach the diggings 
or what to do after they reached them than to "follow the 
crowd." It is needless to say that those who expected to 
find the journey to Dawson City a pleasure trip, or who 
threw away their outfits in the scramble to be first at the 
mines, or who expected to dig gold from the ground as 
the farmer digs potatoes, have long since found their mis- 
take. Fortunately, several thousands of those who started 
for the mines were obliged to turn back and wait till 
spring. From these and from thousands of others who 
expect to be in the rush to Alaska in the spring and summer 
of 1898 has come a demand for such information as this book 
contains. It is believed that in this little volume is sum- 
marized all the most important and reliable information 
obtainable regarding the Yukon gold fields, or which can be 
obtained before the summer of 1898 ; that it contains the 
best map of these regions yet published, and the most prac- 
tical, and, hence, the most valuable treatise on placer and 
hydraulic mining in print. We recommend this book to the 
mining public, confident that it will make friends wherever 
it goes. 

The Colliery Engineer Co., 

Scranton, Pa. 

December, 1897. 






CONTENTS. 



Chapter. page 

I. The Yukon Gold Fields 1 

II. How to Take Care of Yourself - - 9 

III. Yukon Miners' Outfit - - - - - 16 

IV. Routes to the Yukon Gold Fields - 22 
V. Routes to the Yukon Gold Fields — 

Continued - - - - - - 35 

VI. Mining Regulations of Alaska - - 42 
VII. Mining Regulations of Northwest 

Canada ------- 46 

VIII. The Origin of Gold Placers 49 
IX. Origin and Development of Placer 

Mining - 53 
X. Methods of Working — Surface Mining; 
Working Frozen Ground: Drifting; 

Hydraulicking ----- 62 

XL Water Supply — Reservoirs, Dams, and 

Measurement of Water 73 

XII. Water Supply — Ditches and Flumes - 81 

XIII. Water Supply — Pipes and Nozzles - 8? 

XIV. Placer Mining Practice — Development 

of Gold Washing Apparatus - - 96 



VI 



CONTEXTS. 



XV. Placer Mining Practice — BlAvSting and 
Tunneling; Sluices, Undercurrents, 
etc. ; Tailings and Dump - - - 105 
XVI. Placer Mining Practice — Washing or 

Hydraulicking - 115 

XVII. Examples of Placers — The Alma Placer 124 
XVIII. Examples of Placers — The Roscoe 

Placer ------- 134 



PLACER MINING. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE YUKON GOLD FIELDS. 

In July, 1897, one of the greatest and richest gold fields 
ever opened was brought to the notice of the civilized world. 
In this case, it did not require months of time and labor to 
verify the stories of wealth brought over by a hundred 
miners from the Klondike district, situated just across the 
Alaskan border in the Northwest Territory. These miners 
had ample evidence that gold existed in plenty where they 
came from, for the steamers Excelsior and Portland, on 
which they came, brought down 81,100,000, or more than 
810,000 for each miner. This was just the beginning. 
During August, September, and October, steamer after 
steamer brought down men with sacks or valises full of the 
precious metal, until 82, 500, 000 in gold has been brought 
out and put into circulation. Within a year after gold was 
discovered on the Klondike in August, 1896, 85,500,000 had 
been taken out on Eldorado and Bonanza Creeks. Over 
half of the output was kept at the mines for use in business 
operations, gold dust being the only circulating medium in 
use there. At least 81,000,000 more would have been 
brought out in the fall had not the Yukon River become 
lower than ever before known in August, preventing the 
river boats from making their final trips to the diggings. 
As the gold is too heavy to bring out overland, it was kept 
at the diggings until spring. 



2 PLACER MINING. 

For richness of the ground the Klondike has seldom been 
equaled in the history of gold mining. Single claims pro- 
duced $150,000 and $200,000 during the winter of 1896, and 
in the spring the owners declared they had -worked only 
small corners of their mines. Single pans of dirt (2 shovel- 
fuls) yielded $800 and $1,000, and pans containing $300 to 
$500 were not uncommon. 

The most authentic news obtainable places the prospec- 
tive output of gold between December, 1897, and July, 1898, 




DAWSON CITY. 

at $20,000,000. It is predicted by conservative men who 
returned from the Klondike in October, 1897, that the steam- 
ers which reach Puget Sound next July will bring down 
$15,000,000 to $17,000,000, or about 40 tons of gold dust and 
nuggets. 

Dr. Dawson, of the Canadian Government, after whom 



PLACER MINING. 3 

Dawson City, the center of the recent gold discoveries, is 
named, states that he considers the Yukon destined to be 
the greatest mining country the world ever saw. " He antici- 
pates that the recent discoveries will lead to the develop- 
ment of quartz mining, in which is the staple wealth of any 
mining country. Experienced prospectors have already 
made a number of valuable gold quartz discoveries in the 
Yukon district, and many more are sure to follow. 

Inspector Strickland, of the Yukon mounted police, in 
speaking of the Klondike discoveries, says: 

''There has been no exaggeration. I have seen nothing 
in newspapers in regard to the richness of the field that is 
not true. Great strikes have been made, but the amount 
of gold is unlimited. There are hundreds of creeks rich in 
gold-bearing placers, never yet entered by prospectors. Of 
course, all the claims in the creeks now opened are taken 
up, but those are only beginnings, I believe, of much great- 
er finds." 

The most conservative and accurate statement of what 
has been accomplished on the Klondike is that made by 
William Ogilvie, the official Surveyor for the Dominion of 
Canada, who returned in September, 1897, from a two years' 
stay on the Yukon, this being his second trip to that coun- 
try. Mr. Ogilvie has had unusual facilities for observation, 
having surveyed the claims on the Klondike. He says: 

"When we consider the unseasonable weather, the un- 
favorable conditions for mining, and the still more unfavor- 
able conditions regarding food, utensils, and labor, what has 
been accomplished on the Klondike may, without hazard, 
be asserted to be unique in the history of mining. I will do 
no more than say generally that we have a region which 
will yet be the scene of numerous mining enterprises, both 
placer and quartz, the latter practically inexhaustible. 



4 PLACER MINING. 

This country under more favorable conditions would be 
the richest and most extensive mining area in the world to- 
day. Notwithstanding the disadvantages of long, cold win- 
ters and lack of roads, we have here a wide field' for profitable 
investment and room for thousands of happy, contented, 
cultivated homes." 

OTHER YUKON DISTRICTS. 

The Klondike is but one of several valuable placer deposits 
in the Yukon Valley, among which are the Hootalinqua, 
vStewart, MacMillan, Forty-Mile, Sixty-Mile, Birch Creek, 
Munook Creek, Tanana, and Koyukuk districts. 

These rich gold fields extend along the Yukon Valley for 
upwards of 1,200 miles, and lie on both sides of the boundary 
between Alaska and Canada. Some of the richest placer 
deposits in the world lie in the neighborhood of Circle City, 
Alaska, and were abandoned in the rush to the Klondike last 
winter. Valuable placer deposits have recently been found 
on Munook Creek, 450 miles west of Circle City, and the re- 
cent discovery of gold mines in Siberia shows that they are 
in the same belt. These mines are in the same chain of 
mountains that supplied California's gold, and in the same 
general line with the Peru fields. Running up the coast, 
this gold vein traverses Alaska and, crossing Bering Strait, 
crops out again in Siberia. The whole Alaskan region is, 
therefore, within the gold belt, and there is scarcely a place 
within its confines where gold has been diligently sought in 
which it has not been found in greater or less quantity. 
American miners and prospectors are advised to expend their 
energies in discovering the deposits which exist on the 
American side of the line, as they will then be free from any 
exactions and restrictions imposed by the Canadian Govern- 
ment. 



PLACER MINING. 5 

In the summer of I8 ( JG, the United States Government had 
a geological survey expert make a thorough investigation of 
the Alaskan gold fields. The result of the exploration is 
stated by the director of the survey in these words: 

" Sufficient data were secured to establish the presence of 
a gold belt 300 miles in length in Alaska, which enters Alaska 
near the mouth of Forty-Mile Creek, and extends westward 
across the Yukon Vallev at the lower ramparts. Its further 
extent is unknown. There is plenty of room for many more 
prospectors and miners in Alaska, for the gulches and creeks 
which have shown good prospects are spread over an area of 
seven hundred square miles. It is the opinion of the geolo- 
gist in charge of the expedition that it is entirely practicable 
to prosecute quartz mining throughout the year in this 
region." 

As far as any thorough prospecting is concerned, the basin 
of the Yukon has hardly been entered. The main river 
winds through a distance of more than 2,000 miles, and its 
tributaries vary in length from 60 to 300 miles, and, until 
the present season, not more than 5,000 miners had entered 
the basin. Hundreds and hundreds of square miles are ab- 
solutely unknown. The Yukon Basin contains an extent of 
territory fully equal to all the mining districts of the Paci- 
fic Coast and the Rocky Mountains put together. Accord- 
ingly, there are unbounded possibilities of further rich dis- 
coveries, because the conditions and the character of the 
entire basin are similar to the Klondike. No hardy, ener- 
getic man, who has the courage and determination to face 
the particular hardships and privations of prospecting and 
mining in Alaska's interior, need hesitate for fear that the 
field will all be taken. 

There is very little opening in the Yukon mining fields 
for professional men, clerks, mechanics, etc., unless, of 



6 PLACER MINING. 

course, they have a good practical or theoretical knowledge 
of prospecting or mining. 

Nor should a man start for the Yukon with less than 
$1,000 capital. Those who go should be prepared to stay 
a couple of years, as the average prospector has to sink a 
great many shafts through the frozen ground before he 
reaches anything worth his while. Ordinarily, during that 
tim : he has excellent chances of making money, with the 
possibilities of a fortune. 

CLIMATE. 

The climate of the Yukon Valley is one of extreme 
rigor in winter, with a brief but relatively hot summer, es- 
pecially when the sky is free from clouds. The rainfall is 
small, averaging 10 inches, or about one-fourth that of 
Pennsylvania or other similar parts of this country. Win- 
ter sets in early in September and lasts until May. The 
lowest temperatures during the winter of 1889-90 were 32°, 
47°, 59°, 55°, 45°, and 26° below zero in the months from 
November to April, and the highest summer temperatures 
are about 95°. The change from winter to summer is quick, 
on account of the rapid change in the length of the day, 
about seven minutes per day. The shortest days are about 
four, and the longest about twenty hours long. In the short 
winter days, the sun is so little above the horizon and so apt 
to be covered with clouds that, but for the bracing air, that 
season would be very depressing. 

TIMBER. 

A great part of the Yukon Valley is clothed with forests 
of spruce, cottonwood, and birch timber, all of which is good 
for building purposes. The hills are thickly covered with 
large trees, but the valleys have the best timber. A saw- 
mill at Dawson City supplies that region with sawn timber 



PLACER MINING. 7 

at a cost of $130 per thousand feet, and next summer will 
see several others established where they will be needed. 

GAME. 

The country contains comparatively little game. Moose, 
caribou, and black, brown, grizzly, and white bears are oc- 
casionally seen. Swallows are quite thick in summer, and 
geese and wild ducks breed in large numbers on the rocks 
and rivers. The fishing is good, particularly for the klfig 
salmon, which weighs 80 to 100 pounds; grayling, white fish, 
lake trout, and eels also run up to large sizes. Swarms of 
mosquitoes and, later, of black gnats, are the pests of the 
Yukon lowlands in summer, and have even been known to 
drive the miner from his work. 

AGRICULTURAL POSSIBILITIES. 

There is a considerable area of land in the Yukon country 
with low valleys and good soil, which, with the influx of 
mining population, will be extensively cultivated. It is not 
a farming country, but can be successfully tilled for local 
supplies. Barley and oats mature, but potatoes have barely 
time to ripen.. There are gardens at Forty-Mile and Fort 
Selkirk in which are raised potatoes, barley and oats, turnips, 
lettuce, radishes, and cabbages. The United States Govern- 
ment has appropriated $15,000 for an experimental farm 
next summer at the junction of the Yukon and Tanana 
Rivers. 

COST OF LIVING. 

The cost of living in the Yukon Valley is at present very 
high, as will be seen from the following recent quotations: 
Flour, $12 per hundred weight (following are the prices per 
pound); moose ham, $1; caribou meat, 65 cents; beans, 10; 
rice, 25; sugar, 25; bacon, 40; potatoes, 25; turnips, 15; 
coffee, 50; dried fruits, 35; tea, $1; tobacco, $1.50; butter, 
a roll, $1.50; eggs, a dozen, $1.50; salmon, each, $1 to $1.50; 



8 PLACER MINING. 

canned fruits, 50 cents; canned meats, 75; shovels, $2.50; 
picks, $5; coal oil, per gallon, $1 ; overalls, $1.50; under- 
wear, per suit, $5 to $7.50; shoes, $5; rubber boots, $10 to 
$15. 

All miners unite in saying that the only fear for the com- 
ing winter is the lack of supplies. It is entirely probable 
that there will be so little supplies in the mining region this 
winter, in proportion to the number of men there, that 
prices will run much higher, and that great suffering and 
hardship will result temporarily, as it is impossible to get in 
fresh supplies after the winter has set in, and provisions are 
sold only for cash. But by next summer it is likely that 
ample means will be taken to ward off any such danger 
thereafter, and prospectors and miners can enter the gold 
region next spring without the fear of starvation or any 
greater hardships than naturally belong to a frontier region, 
even in such a comparatively inaccessible part of the globe as 
the Yukon Valley. 



CHAPTER II. 

HOW TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.- 

MEDICINE CHEST. 

We would advise all persons who contemplate going to 
the Klondike region to include in their outfits a medicine 
chest composed of the following drugs, which should be 
obtained at a drug store for about $5: 

Acetanelid Compound Tablets (gr. v.). — To lessen 
fever, to relieve pain of neuralgic or rheumatic nature, for 
toothache or headache. Dose: Two tablets. May repeat 
in 4 or 5 hours. If 2 tablets do not relieve, 3 or 4 will not. 
Will usually relieve pain in chest — pleurisy pain. 

Morphine (gr. -J-). — To relieve extreme pain of any sort; 
for instance, pain of broken limb or injury when it is un- 
bearable, severe colic or pain in bowels — in fact, unbearable 
pain anywhere. Dose: One tablet. May repeat every 45 
minutes until pain is relieved or person becomes drowsy. 
When it makes the person sleepy or drowsy, stop it. 

Dover's Powder Tablets (gr. v.). — To produce sweat, 
break up a cold: Take two at bedtime with hot drink and 
wrap up warm. To check a bad diarrhoea: Take one every 
hour until diarrhoea is checked, or until drowsy. 

Aloin Strych. Bellad. and Cascara Pills. — Laxative. 
Two or three at bedtime for several nights. 

Compound Cathartic Pills. — Physic, stronger than 

laxative. One or two at bedtime. A good plan is to take 

these one night, and then every night for a week take the 
laxative. 



10 PLACER MINING. 

Bismuth Pepsin and Nux Vomica. — For indigestion or 
dyspepsia. One or two before each meal. 

Bichloride Tablets, Compressed Antiseptic Tablets 
(Poison). — (These are poisonous if swallowed; the solution 
made from them is poisonous if swallowed). One dissolved 
in 1 pint of water to wash out any wound or sore that has 
pus or matter in it. Bathe for 5 minutes. 

One dissolved in 1 quart of water for any fresh cut or 
sore. Bathe for 5 minutes. 

After washing with this solution a sore, wound, or any 
place where the skin is broken, cover the place with five or 
six layers of iodoform gauze, right next the sore, and out- 
side this plenty of cotton, and bandage or plaster to hold it 
in place. 

Wounds or sores that are festering (forming pus or mat- 
ter) should be dressed once or twice daily, according to the 
amount of discharge; those that are not forming matter 
or pus need not be dressed oftener than every three days. 

Carbolic Salve. — A good dressing for burns, chafes, and 
small cuts and frost-bites. 

The Best Liniment for Bruises. — Very hot water con- 
stantly applied, kept very hot, for 3 or 4 hours at a time 

Citric Acid. — Dissolve in water to make lemonade in 
case of scurvy. A pinch to glass of water. 

Lead Acetate, 12-Grain Opium Powders. — For lead 
and opium wash or liniment. It is made by boiling for 10 
minutes 1 pint of water containing 1 heaping teaspoonful of 
lead acetate and 1 (12-grain) opium powder. Apply cot- 
ton saturated with this — hot, and change it as often as it 
cools; keep it hot (paper over dressing helps this). An 
excellent dressing or liniment for painful bruises or swell- 
ings, sprained joint, swollen testicle, painful bruise from fall, 



PLACER MINING. 11 

kick, or blow. It is not good for extensive raw surface as 
large cut or burn. 

Monsell's Salts for Hemorrhages. — In quantities in 
accordance with the person's liability to attacks of the 
trouble. 

Two drams iodoform, 50 quinine pills, % dozen assorted 
bandages, 1 pound of listerine (for cuts, burns, colds, sore 
throat, etc.), 1 small roll of surgeon's plaster, and some 
antiseptic gauze dressing for wounds. 

Surgeons' Lint. — One yard. 

Absorbent Cotton. — Four ounces. 

Mustard Plasters. — One-half dozen. 

MEDICAL SUGGESTIONS. 

For many constitutions, the bracing effect of a trip to 
northern latitudes is positively beneficial. Snow and ice 
are not in themselves by any means injurious to the physi- 
cal health of the average native of the temperate zone. 
They may be disagreeable, but they are not unhealthful, 
unless the soil of the district where they occur is of a nature 
to retain dampness. Clays are bad in this respect ; gravelly 
soils are safe. 

Scientific records have well established that the average 
duration of human life is greater in proportion as the resi- 
dence is advanced from the equator towards the poles. 
There are exceptions, of course, but only such as prove the 
general rule. There is more risk of disease by far in a voy- 
age to India or Panama than in one to' Bering Straits. 

Climate, however, is not the only thing to be considered, 
when there is question, in a medical sense, of the risks of a 
distant and laborious expedition undertaken by a multitude 
of persons, widely differing, as all multitudes must, in the 
capacity of individuals for standing hardship and privations. 



12 PLACER MIXING. 

To the weak, or those disposed to special ailments, condi- 
tions which are only invigorating to the man in average 
health are often absolutely fatal. Weak hearts and weak 
lungs can not face northern blasts or temperatures below 
zero. Rheumatism and its kindred affections are equally 
ill fitted for such tests. Xor are such persons, whether 
young or old, as have been long accustomed to purely sed- 
entary occupations, or of lives of ease and luxury, physi- 
cally fitted for the hardships of the Klondike. In the form- 
er, the vital and resistive powers have never been developed ; 
in the latter they have been sapped. Weak eyes would be se- 
verely tested by the glare of a snow-covered land, and blind- 
ness is but one of the dangers to be feared by Arctic explorers. 

In brief, we would say that persons subject to troubles 
of the heart, throat, or lungs should stay away from the 
Klondike. Physical exhaustion, colds, scurvy, rheumatism, 
and snow blindness are the chief dangers to be apprehended 
on the trip from a medical standpoint. For the healthy in 
other respects than those mentioned, there is no more 
danger to be dreaded than in any ordinary change of resi- 
dence. Alaska is not in itself more unhealthy than Illinois, 
Norway, or the northern part of Scotland. Only those 
that are able to bear hardships should face them, but as far 
as hygienic conditions go, there need be no special appre- 
hension on the score of Alaska. In conclusion, those of 
weak lungs and weak hearts, and sedentary people generally, 
are advised to stay at home. The others may balance 
their chances without need of doctor's advice. 

CAMPING AND TRAVELING. 

Establish camp rules, especially regarding the food. Al- 
lot rations, those while idle to be less than when at work, 
and also pro rata during heat and cold. Pitch the tent on 
top of the snow, pushing the poles and pegs down into it. 



PLACER MIXING. 13 

While some are busily engaged in building a fire and making 
a bed, let the best cook of the party prepare the supper. If 
you have no stove, build a camp-fire, either on an exposed 
point of rock or in a hole dug in the snow; if you have a 
stove, arrange it on a " gridiron " inside the tent, the grid- 
iron consisting of three poles some six or eight feet long, 
and laid on the snow, on which the stove is placed. The 
heat from the snow will soon melt a hole underneath, but 
there will be enough firm snow under the ends of the poles 
to hold it up. For the bed, cut hemlock brush and lay it 
on the snow to the depth of a foot or more, and cover this 
with a large square of canvas, on which blankets and robes 
are put. When finished, it forms a natural spring bed, 
which will offer grateful rest after hauling a sled all day. 
In all except the most sheltered locations, the tent is neces- 
sary for comfort, and the stove gives better satisfaction 
than the camp-fire, and as it needs but little wood, is easier 
to cook over, and does not poison the eyes with smoke. 
There are fewer cases of snow blindness among those who 
use stoves than among those who crowd around a smoking 
camp-fire for cooking or warmth. Comfort in making a 
trip of this kind will depend, in a great measure, upon the 
conveniences of camping, suitable clothing, and light, warm 
bedding. Choose your bunk as far from the tent door as 
possible, and keep a fire hole open near your camp. If by 
any chance you are traveling across a plain (no trail) and a 
fog comes up, or a blinding snowstorm, either of which will 
prevent you taking your bearings, camp, and don't move 
for anything until all is clear again. Travel as much on 
clear ice as possible. Don't try to pull sledges over snow, 
especially if soft or crusty. White snow over a crevasse, if 
hard, is safe; yellow, or dirty color, never. Press the trig- 
ger of your rifle. Don't pull it. Don't catch hold of the 



14 PLACER MINING. 

barrel when 30 degrees below zero is registered. Watch 
out for getting snow in the barrel. If you do, don't shoot 
it out. Shoot a dog, if you have to, behind the base of the 
skull; a horse, between the ears, ranging downwards; a 
deer behind the left shoulder or in the head. If you can not 
finish your rations for one day, don't put back any part, but 
put it into your personal canvas outfit bag. You will need 
it later, no doubt. Don't waste a single ounce of anything, 
even if you don't like it. Put it away, and it will come 
handy when you will like it. If it is ever necessary to cache 
a load of provisions, put all articles next to the ground 
which will be most affected by heat, providing, at the same 
time, that dampness will not affect their food properties to 
any great extent. After piling your stuff, load it over care- 
fully with heavy rocks. Take your compass-bearings, and 
also note ir^ your memoranda some landmarks near by, and 
also the direction in which they lie from your cache; i. e., 
make your cache, if possible, come between exactly north and 
south of two given prominent marks, so that you can find it. 
From the close of navigation by the freezing up of the 
lakes and rivers, the only means of travel is by dog trains. 
The dog used for this work is large, gaunt, long-haired, and 
wolfish, and will make 50 to 70 miles a day with a load that 
a man could scarcely haul at a walk. Six dogs make a 
good team, though a man and a dog or two dogs are often 
seen. The native packers often have as many as a dozen in 
a pack. The regular rule of the Hudson Bay packers is 
about 100 pounds to the dog, and six dogs in a team. The 
dogs weigh from 40 to 70 pounds. They are well trained 
and do not get sore feet, as do " tenderfoot" dogs taken into 
the country. They are fed on cheap bacon, horse meat, 
corn meal, or anything that is cheap and eatable. Dogs 
taken in from warmer climates are apt to get footsore, and 



PLACER MINING. 15 

tire out and be of no use. It requires an expert dog hand- 
ler to get along with a dog team, and unless conditions are 
favorable, it is hardly worth while for a novice to make the 
experiment. 

CARE OF FURS AND CLOTHING. 

Keep your furs in good repair. One little slit may cause 
you untold agony during a march in a heavy storm. 
You can not tell when such will be the case. If your furs 
get wet, dry them in a medium temperature. Don't hold 
them near a fire. Keep your sleeping bag clean. If it be- 
comes inhabited, freeze the inhabitants out. Keep all your 
draw-strings on clothing in good repair. Don't forget to 
use your goggles when the sun is bright on snow. A fellow 
is often tempted to leave them off. Don't you do it. A 
little dry grass or hay in the inside of your mitts, next your 
hands, will promote great heat, especially whea.it gets damp 
from the moisture of your hands. After the mitts are re- 
moved from the hands, remove the hay from the mitts and 
dry it. Failing that, throw it away. Be sure, during the 
winter, to watch your footgear carefully. Change wet 
stockings before they freeze, or you may lose a toe or foot. 

When your nose is bitterly cold, stuff both nostrils with 
fur, cotton, wool, or anything to prevent the inside of your 
nose and throat from becoming frostbitten. The cold will 
cease. Don't eat snow or ice. Go thirsty until you can 
melt it. No man can continuously drag more than his own 
weight. In cases of extreme cold at toes and heel, wrap a 
piece of fur over each extremity. Remember success fol- 
lows economy and persistency on an expedition like yours. 
And take warning — let no man go into the Yukon who can 
not endure hardship, who can not work with pick and shovel 
for ten hours, who can not carry a pack, and who can not 
take a full outfit with him. 



CHAPTER III. 

YUKON MINERS' OUTFIT. 

PRELIMINARY SUGGESTIONS. 

In addition to the medicine chest described in the prece- 
ding chapter, the following is a list of supplies necessary for 
one man for one year in the Klondike mining region. All 
authorities are agreed that those who go with less will be 
tempting fate. The requirements in clothing, food, and 
miners' outfitting in general are peculiar, and differ 
for the Yukon district from all other mining countries. 
The extreme long, cold winters, short, hot summers, and 
other points have to be considered. Outfits should be pur- 
chased in Tacoma, or Seattle, or other Puget Sound ports. 
The markets there offer everything mentioned below, in 
good quality and at reasonable prices. The merchants 
understand the trade and will select and put up an outfit, 
large or small, and unless a man knows what he wants, the 
best thing he can do is to name the price he can afford to 
pay and leave the selection to the merchant. This is pos- 
sible, because there are manufactured the flour, bacon, 
evaporated fruits and vegetables, blankets, special Alaska 
clothing, boots, shoes, sleds, stoves, tents, boats, and, in 
fact, nine-tenths of the staples used in Alaska. Large 
stocks of goods" are also carried at Juneau. 

PROVISIONS. 

One hundred and fifty pounds entire wheat flour; 50 
pounds corn meal; 100 pounds hardtack; 50 pounds germea; 
25 pounds rice; 75 pounds Bayo beans; 50 pounds peeled and 
evaporated potatoes ; 10 pounds evaporated onions ; 50 pounds 



PLACER MINING. 17 

dried soup vegetables; 5 pounds split peas; 50 pounds of 
stoned and dried fruit (apples, peaches, plums, prunes, 
apricots, and raisins) ; one hundred pounds boneless bacon ; 
50 pounds chipped beef; 5 pounds compressed soup and beef 
extract; 30 pounds canned lard; 30 pounds canned butter; 
5 pounds coffee extract ; 20 pounds compressed tea ; 40 pounds 
loaf sugar; 15 pounds salt; 1 pound white pepper, ground; 
7 pounds baking powder; 2 pounds soda; G packages yeast 
cakes; 1 pound mustard; ^ pound ginger; 20 pounds con- 
densed milk; 2 pounds evaporated vinegar or citric acid; 
40 pounds candles; 7 pounds laundry soap; 5 cakes tar toilet 
soap; 1 pound of matches. In making purchases, it is well 
to observe the suggestion that the very best articles that 
can be purchased are none too good, and will more than 
repay the purchaser in the long run. Germea is selected in 
preference to oatmeal, because containing nutriment in a 
more condensed form, and because it is a very quickly pre- 
pared dish. Tea is far preferable in the winter cold than coffee. 

SHELTER. 

One 10 ft. X 12 ft. wall tent, made of 8-ounce duck or heavy 
drill, will make very satisfactory temporary quarters for four 
men. In lieu of a tent, a remarkably ingenious affair called 
a " Klondike Home " has been devised by Arthur F. Howes, 
of Seattle, Wash. These "homes," which cost $200, and 
weigh about 130 pounds, are built of aluminum. They are 
intended for two people, but, it is claimed, will house four and 
even six. It is said that the homes can be put up in an 
hour or less, and taken down and put in bundles in the same 
time. The frame is made of steel tubing, "telescoping" 
into the posts, which in turn are packed into the stove 
funnel, and this is put into a canvas cover for protection in 
transit. The material which forms the walls and roof is 
aluminum. The stove is of sheet steel, packed in a canvas 



18 PLACER MINING. 

bag to allow easy handling, and there are no sharp corners 
to cut into the carrier. It has two six-inch rounds on the 
top, and an oven of sufficient size, around which all the heat 
must pass. A copper-bottom boiler and a tea kettle are 
packed inside the fire-box, and there is room in this and in 
the oven to pack food and cooking utensils. The roof and 
walls of the " home" are packed into the bed, a sort of flat 
hammock, which when in use as a bed supports two people 
three feet above the floor. The frame is held together by 
connections resembling pipe fittings. This is covered .with 
sheet aluminum, so lapped and fitted together that it is 
water and weather proof. It is guyed from the upper 
corners, like a tent. Hooks are provided on which to hang 
clothing, etc. A shelf along the side serves as a table. 
The bed is folded and used as a bench seat during the day. 
The windows are of transparent celluloid and are practically 
indestructible. The "homes" are 6 ft. 6 in. long X 5 ft. 
6 in. wide X 6 ft. 6 in. high. 

CLOTHING. 

Those who have never wintered in the Arctic regions have 
no conception of the intense cold it is necessary to protect 
against. This lack of realization is doubtless responsible 
for the absolute insufficiency and uselessness of what is 
offered as a Klondike clothing outfit by some clothiers. It 
is winter that one must think of in preparing, not sum- 
mer. For clothing, then, take the following: 3 suits heavy 
woolen underwear; 6 pairs heavy double-foot wool socks; 

1 pair double-foot German woolen socks; 1 pair Cana- 
dian laragans or shoe-packs; 3 pairs seamless felt ankle 
moccasins; 2 pairs heavy snag-proof, leather soled, nail- 
protected, hip rubber boots, for summer work in water; 

2 pairs specially made prospector's shoes; 2 heavy flannel 
shirts ; 2 suits corduroy ; 2 pairs pantaloons (one of stout, 



PLACER MINING. 19 

moderately heavy cloth for summer wear, the other of a 
lighter, close-woven cloth, which should be quilted with 
cotton batting a half-inch thick in the seat and over the 
thighs and knees, for winter use) ; 2 pairs stout riveted over- 
alls, one felt-lined; 1 pair heavy Giant Buckle suspenders; 
2 vests; 1 cloth sack coat; 2 heavy overall jumpers; 1 coat 
of wool cloth; 1 coat made of skin dressed with the hair on. 
The last named should be turned inside. For material, 
short hair, coarse wool, or sheepskin is excellent, and should 
not be expensive. For those who desire it, this coat can be 
made of deerskin with the hair outside and lining of squirrel 
or cat skins; 1 wool neck-scarf; 1 scarf or belt to draw coat 
tight around waist in cold weather; 2 pairs boots made of 
deerskin, hair outside, reenforced leather sole, sewed or 
pegged on, not nailed. The tops should extend above the 
knee and be laced tight there. They should be large 
enough to take in the foot covered with two pairs of socks, 
or with one pair and felt moccasins, and to take in the legs 
of the quilted pantaloons. The top of the boot need not be 
lined with fur. One heavy rubber-lined coat or mackintosh; 
2 heavy woolen sweaters; 1 suit oil clothing; 2 fur caps, 
with fur-lined ear-laps; 1 wide-brimmed felt hat; 3 pairs 
heavy wool caribou mitts; 1 pair unlined leather work 
gloves; 1 pair snow-shoes; 1 pair snow-glasses; towels; 
2 dozen best quality bandana handkerchiefs; 10 yards 
mosquito netting, or 1 bee hat; 1 pair heaviest woolen 
blankets; 1 fur robe for sled travel and sleeping outdoors. 
This should be 4 ft. X 6 ft. , with the outside covered with heavy 
woolen cloth and arranged like a bag by being made from a 
piece 6 ft. X 8 ft. , doubled and sewed at each edge, except one. 
The end which is left open should be sewed about 6 inches 
toward the center from each side, and puckering strings 
arranged to draw the hole up close; 1 sheet light-weight 



20 PLACER MIXING. 

rubber waterproof cloth 12 feet square; several rubber bags 
or packing cases should be purchased in which to carry per- 
ishable goods ; compass, pocket comb, mirror, toothbrush, 
toilet paper, etc. In addition, there should be a small lot of 
repair materials — needles, thread, buttons, buckskin, shoe- 
maker's awl and wax, boot-sole nails, rubber cement, rubber 
patching, etc. 

HARDWARE, ETC. 

One sheet-iron stove, folding, if possible, and pipe, the 
latter in flat sheets, with seam edge crimped for joining, or 
in three lengths, telescoping; 1 fry pan, with folding handle; 

2 pots, 8-quart and 6-quart, with cover and bail; 1 kettle; 
1 galvanized water bucket; 1 small riveted teapot; 3 pans 
for bread baking, sizes to nest together; 3 soup-plates, blue 
or granite ware ; 2 cups, blue or granite ware, sizes to nest ; 
1 can opener; table-knife; fork; tea and soup spoons; 1 
large mixing spoon; 1 bread or butcher knife. To save 
weight and for ease in cleaning, aluminum ware is very 
much to be preferred for the cooking utensils. A combined 
rifle and shotgun and ammunition ; 1 large two-blade hunt- 
ing knife ; fishing tackle and hooks ; 1 50-ft. tape ; 1 gold pan ; 
1 gold scales; 2 3+-pound picks, with large eye; 3 handles 
for same; 1 drifting pick and handle; 1 long handle miner's 
shovel (spring point) ; 1 short handle miner's shovel (spring 
point); 1 scythe stone; 1 pack strap; 1 American ax; 1 
hatchet, hammer head, claw; 1 blacksmith hammer; 6 8-inch 
files and 2 taper files; 1 5-J-ft. whipsaw, for getting out 
lumber; 1 26-in. Disston cross-cut handsaw ; 1 rip handsaw ; 

3 chisels, including 1 calking chisel; 1 brace and bits; 1 
folding draw-knife; 1 saw set and file; 1 square; 1 jack- 
plane; 20 pounds spikes; 2 pairs 8-inch strap-butts; 200 feet 
^--inch manilla waterproof rope ; 8 pounds of pitch ; 5 pounds 
of oakum; nails, five pounds each of 6, 8, 10, and 12 penny; 



PLACER MINING. 21 

plumb, level, chalk lines. In addition, each man in the 
party will require a Yukon sleigh, a skeleton affair made 
from the best hard wood and shod with ground brass run- 
ners. It is 7 feet 3 inches long and 16 inches wide, just the 
proper width to track behind snowshoes, and its cost is from 
$7 to $14. Brass is preferable to iron for the shoes, as it 
slides more easily through the fine, dry snow one finds in 
the early spring. 

The list looks long and the bulk very considerable, yet 
there is not an unnecessary article in it. If, however, sev- 
eral men propose to travel together and work in partnership, 
only a small portion of the kitchen outfit and tools require 
duplication. Some game and fish may be taken, so that the 
use of the full quantity of subsistence suggested may not be 
required ; but it is far safer to provide the full amount than 
to risk the success of getting game. 

The total weight of the outfit is about 1,500 pounds, and 
the cost about $350. After purchasing his outfit and paying 
for his ticket to Dyea or Skagway, the would-be gold miner 
should have from $200 to $500 to pay incidental expenses 
during his first year in the Yukon Valley. One thousand 
dollars would be a far safer figure. 

DUTIES ON OUTFITS. 

Many different reports having gone out concerning the 
amount of exemption to miners which has been granted by 
the Canadian Government, it may be well to state that in- 
structions have been issued by the Canadian Government 
exempting from all duty miners' blankets, personal clothing 
in use, and broken packages of provisions being used, also 
cooking utensils in use, and 100 pounds of food for the jour- 
ney, charging ordinary customs duty on everything in ex- 
cess of this amount. The duty on a $350 outfit will amount 
to from $50 to $70. 



CHAPTER IV. 

ROUTES TO THE YUKON GOLD FIELDS. 

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS. 

Gold, and the search for gold, ofttimes make a wonder- 
ful change in the face of nature. Before the rich discov- 
eries on the Klondike, Alaska was a land of slow-going old 
settlements, typical of all that was leisurely and ancient. 
A few steamers starting from Tacoma, the head of naviga- 
tion on Puget Sound, and stopping at Seattle, Victoria, 
Vancouver, and other Puget Sound ports, sufficed to take 
care of the trade in supplies, furs, fish, and occasional pros- 
pecting parties, and made up the life of the community at 
the extreme southerly edge and only inhabited portion of 
that vast territory. 

With the spreading of the news of the discovery of gold 
on the Klondike River began to come the crowds of eager 
gold seekers, by hundreds and then by thousands, from every 
quarter of the world, and at the principal Puget Sound 
ports, instead of the comparatively uneventful sailing of a 
steamer about once a week to care for the traffic in supplies, 
ores, fish, furs, and the few travelers back and forth, with 
the added interest in the summer months of the tourist ex- 
cursions, now the docks present a scene of bustle and excite- 
ment. The crowds of gold seekers, with their outfits, their 
pack ponies, or dogs, the friends who go down to bid them 
good-by, and the rush and hurry in getting aboard the ves- 
sel's freight, make quite a different picture from the sailing 
of an Alaskan steamer a year ago. Along the streets of the 
cities are displayed " Klondike" outfits, Alaska clothing, 
sleds, sleeping bags, miners' tools, condensed foods for the 



PLACER MINING. 2:* 

Arctic regions, gold pans, rifles and revolvers, dust belts, 
and the many other articles that go to make up a prospec- 
tor's outfit, all looked upon with interest by the passing 
crowds in the streets. In the shops, workmen are busy build- 
ing Yukon sleds, camp stoves, and other equipment for the 
prospector, and the stamp of " Klondike" is seen upon every 
line of industry. Parties are flocking into the cities by every 
train, to await the time to start for the north in February 
or March, and groups of them may be seen talking over the 
various fields, the prospects and chances, and the expe- 
rienced miner giving the tenderfoot points on outdoor life. 
At Juneau, many of those who failed to get over the pass in 
the fall are waiting for the spring, and at Dyea, Skagway, 
Fort Wrangel, and Sitka, others are awaiting the lengthen- 
ing days of February to be off to the Klondike, the Copper 
River, the Pelly, the Tanana, the MacMillan, the Munook, 
and the dozen other fields where rich finds are reported, 
and the first of March will see a rush of gold hunters into 
the country such as has seldom been seen in any former 
gold-mining excitement in the history of the world. 

THE FIRST OBJECTIVE POINT. 

As nearly all Alaskan steamers sail from Puget Sound 
ports (Tacoma, Seattle, Victoria, Vancouver, etc.), one of 
these cities will be the first objective point. If the would- 
be prospector is a citizen of the United States, he will 
probably go to either Tacoma or Seattle, which are near 
neighbors, both in the State of Washington ; if he be a 
Canadian citizen, he will naturally go to Victoria or Van- 
couver. 

Rates from New York City to Puget Sound points vary 
from |(32.75, the lowest second-class rate, to $81.25 for first- 
class. Meals and berths are not included in these figures. 
Berths from New York to Puget Sound points are $9. The 



24 PLACER MINING. 

Union Pacific, Northern Pacific, Great Northern, and Cana- 
dian Pacific lines are the principal competing roads. All of 
these lines have offices in New York. The cheapest way of 
getting from New York to the Pacific Coast is by steamer 
from New York to New Orleans, thence by the Southern 
Pacific to San Francisco. The cost of a ticket by this route, 
including steerage berth and meals on steamer and second- 
class passage by rail, is $54.50. 

From Puget Sound points there are at present nine known 
routes to the Yukon gold fields. 

As the Chilkoot Pass route is the most important and the 
most generally traveled of these routes, we will describe that 
first, reserving the description of the other routes for a sub- 
sequent chapter. 

THE CHILKOOT PASS ROUTE. 

The shortest route to the basin of the Yukon, and the one 
which has been taken by nearly nine-tenths of all the gold 
seekers who have thus far gone to the interior, is that via 
the Chilkoot Pass (see map). The details of this route 
are as follows : 

From Puget Sound ports to Juneau, 900 miles. — This 
portion of the journey can be taken at any time of the year. 
There are usually several steamers each way every week 
between Puget Sound ports and Juneau. The trip usually 
takes five or six days. Rates at hotels and restaurants in 
Juneau are about the same as in any city. The fare from 
Puget Sound ports to Juneau, including berth and meals, is, 
first-class, $32 ; steerage, $17. One hundred and fifty pounds 
of baggage are allowed each passenger, and excess baggage 
is carried at $9 per ton. In the summer season, passage can 
be obtained direct from Puget Sound ports to Dyea, with- 
out changing at Juneau. 

From Juneau to Dyea (or Taiya), 101 miles. — Ordinarily, 



PLACER MINING. 25 

passage over this portion of the route can be obtained 
within a day or so after arrival in Juneau; but as the small 
boats run irregularly, quick connections can not always be 
depended upon. The fare from Juneau to Dyea is $8 to $10, 
and if the weather is fair and the load light, the trip is made 
in twelve hours. The landing process at Dyea is long and 
tedious. There is no deep water near shore. The tide at 
the head of the long and narrow estuary rises and fails 
twenty-three feet, and the beach is long and flat. Hence, 
everything must be taken ashore in lighters and surf-boats, 
which make long trips with each load. Horses are dumped 
into the water to wade ashore. The responsibility of the 
steamship company ends at the anchorage, but it uses its 
boats and crews to help get passengers and freight ashore. 
As soon as possible after landing, the freight is sorted and 
carried out of reach of tidewater. Most miners camp near 
by in the edge of the woods, perhaps taking one or two 
meals at a restaurant; others find both board and lodging 
until they are ready to push on. Now, for the first time, 
the miner begins to size up his belongings, and begins to 
realize that a proper outfit for a trip of this kind is the 
result of experience, and the longer he has been in this coun- 
try and the more thoroughly he knows it, just so much more 
care is used in the selection and packing of his outfit. A 
careful and thorough examination should be made to see 
that nothing has been lost or forgotten. Towns of five 
thousand inhabitants have grown up both at Dyea and at 
Skagway, five miles below. 

OVER THE CHILKOOT PASS— THE NEW WAY. 

The problem of how to rapidly and cheaply transport pas- 
sengers and freight over the Chilkoot Pass to the headwaters 
of the Yukon has been solved in an unexpected but entirely 



20 PLACER MINING. 

practical manner. Heretofore, getting over this pass has 
been the most dangerous and difficult part of the Yukon 
journey. Men have had to either carry their heavy outfits 
a distance of twenty-five miles over the pass, involving lug- 
ging them up steep hills with an aggregate elevation of 
3,500 feet, or pay large sums to the Indians for taking them 
over. This has required a great deal of hard work when 
the miner's time was most valuable, or necessitated the ex- 
penditure of such large sums in getting over that few 
men could afford it. Men who have done their own 
packing have been tired and worn out on reaching the 
lakes, and some have given up on reaching Lake Linde- 
man. 

This situation will be quite changed by the Chilkoot Rail- 
road and Transport Company, which expects to have its 
transportation system in operation by February, 1898, in 
time for the early spring rush over the pass. Miners and 
prospectors can then disembark from the steamers at Dyea. 
and in twenty-four hours find themselves with their outfits 
at Lake Lindeman. Boats, sleds, and dogs can be taken 
over as readily as flour and beans, so that on reaching Lake 
Lindeman the miner has only to pack his sled, launch his 
boat, or harness his dog team, and be ready to start down 
the lakes. The great majority of miners will have neither 
dogs nor boats, but on reaching Lake Lindeman will proceed 
to haul their sleds over the ice to the foot of Lake Lebarge, 
where they will build boats and be ready to start down the 
river as soon as the ice breaks. 

The Chilkoot Railroad and Transport Company is now 
(December, 1897) completing a railroad eight miles in 
length from Dyea to the mouth of Dyea Canyon. Between 
the mouth of the canyon and Crater Lake, on the other side 
of the summit, two aerial tramways, each four miles in 



PLACER MINING. 27 

length, will be operated. The contract for these aerial tram- 
ways has been let to the Trenton (New Jersey) Iron Works, 
which has built over a hundred of them, now in successful 
operation in the United States, Mexico, Central and South 
America. The longest one in the world, twelve miles in 
length, was recently built by the same company in the 
island of Hayti. 

One tramway on Chilkoot Pass will reach through Dyea 
Canyon to Sheep Camp, with a rise of 1,000 feet in four 
miles. The other will extend from Sheep Camp to Crater 
Lake, with a rise of "2,500 feet to the summit of the pass, and 
a decline of 5<>n feet between the summit and Crater Lake. 
Over 10 miles of the best steel-wire cable will be used in the 
construction of these tramways, which will be supported by 
solid iron supports placed every loo feet. The power station, 
to develop 50 horsepower, will be located at Sheep Camp. 
This power will operate the tramways rapidly, giving them 
a daily capacity of 120 tons, or outfits for 200 men. Special 
carriages will be provided for carrying passengers. The 
Trenton Iron Works is under contract to have this system 
of tramways in operation by January 15, and beginning then 
the Chilkoot Railroad and Transport Company will be able 
to transport '200 miners and their outfits over the pass daily. 
From Crater Lake to Lake Lindeman Landing the trail runs 
down hill, with an easy grade, making it possible for the 
miners to load their sleds and slide down over the crusted 
snow and ice. 

A telephone line connecting Dyea and Lake Lindeman is 
being constructed, ensuring the operation of the transpor- 
tation system to the best advantage. It will also enable 
men crossing the pass to communicate with either end or 
intermediate stations. 



28 PLACER MINING. 

OVER THE CHILKOOT PASS— THE OLD TV AY. 

From Dyea to the Sheep Camp, 12 miles. — Two days are 
generally consumed in making this part of the journey, 
although it is possible to make it in one. The first five 
miles of the journey, from Dyea to the mouth of the can- 
yon, can be made by canoe during parts of April and Sep- 
tember and all of May, June, July, and August, or on the 
ice at other seasons of the year. Dyea Canyon is about two 
miles long, and can be traversed on the ice in winter by 
bridging the dangerous holes with poles. In summer it is 
necessary to go around the canyon by a trail which has been 
built on the east side. The balance of the journey is easy. 
There is now a considerable settlement at the Sheep Camp. 

From the Sheep Camp to Lake Lindeman, 15 miles. — 
This portion of the route, containing the Chilkoot Pass, can 
be traversed in summer by any able-bodied man or woman 
with very little difficulty or danger, but the conditions in 
winter, spring, or fall are such that great caution must be 
observed. This is due to the terrible severity of the Arctic 
storms, which come up suddenly and rage with fury through 
this narrow defile at certain seasons of the year. During 
the month of October, 1897, not less than 20 persons are 
reported to have perished in such storms. None except 
those who are familiar with the pass should ever attempt it 
alone. Four or five men should compose each party starting 
for the gold fields, as one tent, stove, set of tools, etc., will 
suffice, and the hardships can in many respects be lightened 
by cooperation on the part of all. The Sheep Camp is 
near the summit, and no wood for a fire can be gotten until 
timber is reached on the other side of the pass, about three 
or four miles from the head of Lake Lindeman. For this 
reason, the Sheep Camp is not usually left until all of the 
outfit has been placed on the summit. When the weather is 



PLACER MINING. 20 

favorable, everything except what is necessary for camp is 
pushed a mile and a half to Stone House, a clump of big 
rocks, and then to what is called the Second Bench. From 
this point, for about GOO feet, the trail is very difficult, but 
Indians may be hired to carry packages up it for about $5 
per hundred pounds. At most seasons of the year, horses 
can be used for the purpose, if sharply shod and accustomed 
to mountain trails. A good horse will carry 150 to 200 
pounds over the summit, while for the average man 50 pounds 
is quite sufficient. The descent for the first half mile is 
steep, then a gradual slope to Lake Lindeman, some ten 
miles away. But there is but little time for resting and 
none for dreaming, as the edge of the timber where the 
camp must be made is seven miles from the summit. Taking 
the camping outfit and sufficient provisions for four or five 
days, the sleigh is loaded, the rest of the outfit is packed up, 
or buried in the snow, shovels being stuck up to mark the 
spot. This precaution is necessary, for storms come sud- 
denly and rage with fury along these mountain crests. The 
first half mile or more is made in quick time ; then, over six 
or seven feet of snow, the prospector drags his sleigh to 
where there is wood for his camp-fire. At times this is no 
easy task, especially if the weather be stormy, for the winds 
blow the new-fallen snow about so as to completely cover the 
track made by the man but little ahead; at other times, 
during fine weather, and with a hard crust on the snow, it 
is only a pleasant run from the pass down to the first camp 
in the Yukon Basin. 

DOWX THE LAKES TO THE HOOTALIXQUA. 

From Lake Lindeman to Lake Bennet, 5 miles. — The 
trip through Lake Lindeman is short, the lake being only 
44 miles long. Boats may be hired to carry goods across. 
It is necessary to portage from Lake Lindeman to Lake 



30 PLACER MINING. 

Bennet, the portage, however, being less than a mile. 
The best time to reach Lake Bennet is early in the 
spring, say about April loth, before the ice begins to melt. 
Persons who time their trip so as to reach there about that 
date can make the trip across the lakes on the ice, and need 
not build rafts until they reach open water on the Yukon or 
Lewis River. Those who reach Lake Bennet after the ice 
has melted will need to build or purchase a boat or scow at 
this point before proceeding further. It is necessary that 
one of the party should have a knowledge of boat building, 
for it is absolutely essential that the craft shall be stanch 
and substantial. The double-ended batteau is the pattern 
ordinarily preferred, though the plain scow of good depth is 
more easily built and can be depended upon. The boats are 
usually 22 to 24 feet long and 4| to 5 feet wide, and, if pur- 
chased at the local sawmill, cost about $60. 

From Lake Bennet to Lake Takou (or Tagish), 29 miles. 
— Lake Bennet is 26 miles long. L T pon this lake the British 
boundary is crossed. Between Lake Bennet and Lake Takou 
is the Caribou Crossing, which is about 3 miles long and 
quite difficult. 

From Lake Takou to Miles Canyon, 66 miles. — Seventeen 
miles of this distance is spent in crossing Lake Takou (or 
Tagish, or Takish, as it is variously spelled), 5 miles in de- 
scending the Six-Mile River, 19 miles in crossing Mud Lake 
and Marsh Lake, and the balance in descending the Fifty- 
Mile River. About half way down the Fifty-Mile River is 
Miles Canyon. Before reaching the canyon, a high cut bank 
of sand on the right-hand side will give warning that it is close 
at hand. Good rivermen have run the canyon safely, even 
with loaded rafts, but it is much safer to make a landing on 
the right side and portage the outfit around the canyon, three- 
quarters of a mile, and run the raft through empty. The 



PLACER MIXING. 



31 



sameness of the scenery on approaching* the canyon is so 
marked that many parties have gotten into the canyon 
before they were aware of it. 

From Miles Canyon to Lake Lebarge, 31 miles. — From 
Miles Canyon to White Horse Rapids, 2 miles, the boat or 
raft can be towed with safety down the stream, when a large 
sign will be seen on the left bank, with the words "Look 




fiEassiggSr* 




MILES CANYON. 



Out " in letters a foot square. The White Horse is the most 
dangerous portion of the trip. It is a box canyon about a 
hundred yards long and fifty in width, a chute through 
which the water of the river, which is 600 feet wide just 
above, rushes with maddening force. But few have ever 
attempted to run these rapids, and fourteen of them are 



32 



PLACER MINING. 



known to have been drowned. It is much safer to portage 
the outfit around these rapids and send the boat through 
empty. Even then the boat is likely to be lost or damaged. 
Every man's life should be worth more to him than all the 
gold in the Klondike region. The balance of the trip from 
White Horse Rapids to Lake Lebarge is via the Fifty-Mile 
River. It may be necessary, below the White Horse Rapids, 




WHITE HORSE RAPIDS. 



to build a new boat before the journey can be continued. 
It is probable that ere long a railroad will be constructed 
around Miles Canyon and White Horse Rapids, to facilitate 
the transportation of freight and passengers at this point. 
At present there is a portage road on the west side, and 
rollways in some places on which to shove the boats over. 



PLACER MINING. 33 

From Lake Lebarge to Hootalinqua River, (31 miles. — 
There are no rapids or other dangers in this part of the 
journey. In the middle of Lake Lebarge (which is 31 miles 
in length) there is an island where parties bound for the 
gold fields usually camp. Ice on Lake Lebarge is usually 
good until about the last of April. From Lake Lebarge to 
the Hootalinqua, the course is down Thirty-Mile River. 

DOWN THE YUKON VALLEY. 

From Hootalinqua River to McCormick Trading Post, 
111 miles. — This section of the journey is always made in 
summer, as the river never freezes over smooth. The ice 
freezes in great rough masses, which makes traveling well- 
nigh impossible. If a person should have the misfortune to get 
frozen in, the best thing he can do is to go into winter quarters 
and commence prospecting at once on the little streams in 
his immediate neighborhood ; the entire region is known to 
be gold-bearing, and a lucky strike is almost as likely to be 
made in one place as another. From Hootalinqua River to 
the Big Salmon River is 27 miles; from the Big Salmon 
River to the Little Salmon River is 63 miles, and from there 
to McCormick Trading Post is 21 miles. The Hootalinqua 
River, after its junction with the Big Salmon River, is 
known as Lewis River. 

From McCormick Trading Post to Fort Selkirk, 79 miles. 
— Twenty miles below McCormick Trading Post are the Five 
Finger Rapids. Here four large buttes divide the water in 
five passages; the right-hand passage is the only one which 
is practicable, and, though the water is swift, it is safe if the 
boat be kept in the center. A few moments of strong 
pulling and careful management, and the boat is rapidly ap- 
proaching Rink Rapids, three miles below. Here again the 
right-hand side ensures safety, and having gone through 



34 PLACER MINING. 

them the last dangerous water is passed. Next comes the 
Pelly River, upon which, and especially upon its chief 
branch, the MacMillan, valuable discoveries were made 
late in 1897. The junction of the Pelly and Lewis forms 
the Yukon proper. Fort Selkirk, or Harper's (as it is 
sometimes called), is located at this point. 

From Fort Selkirk to Stewart River, 106 miles. — Ninety-six 
miles below Fort Selkirk the White River is passed, 10 miles 
beyond which is the Stewart River, where some of the latest 
discoveries have been reported. There is little doubt but that 
the newcomer stands as good or better opportunity in pros- 
pecting along the creeks entering this river as anywhere in 
the Yukon district. All of the streams thus far referred to 
enter the Yukon from the right, with the exception of the 
White River. Below the Stewart River, the various mining 
districts are reached in the following 6rder : Sixty-Mile Creek, 
Klondike River, Forty-Mile Creek, and Birch Creek. Gold 
has also been discovered on Porcupine River, Munook Creek, 
Tanana River, and Koyukuk River. An examination of 
the map will show that these districts cover practically the 
whole known interior of Alaska, and large deposits have 
been found on the Kenai peninsula and other places along 
the southern coast. Just at present the Copper River 
district (see map) is attracting much attention. 



CHAPTER V. 

ROUTES TO THE YUKON GOLD FIELDS. 

{Continued. ) 

THE ALL-WATER ROUTE. 

One of the best, because safest, most natural, most com- 
fortable, and cheapest routes to the gold fields is the all- 
water route (see map). From Puget Sound the steamers 
sail out through the Straits of San Juan del Fuca north- 
westerly across the Pacific Ocean 2,000 miles to Dutch 
Harbor, on Unalaska Island, which is the first stop; thence 
750 miles north through Bering Sea and Norton Sound to St. 
Michael Island, 60 miles above the mouth of the Yukon, 
where transfer is made to the smaller craft which ply up and 
down the Yukon. The Yukon is navigable the entire dis- 
tance from its mouth to Fort Selkirk, in Canadian territory, 
2,300 miles, without a break, and all of the gold fields thus far 
discovered are reached direct by the river steamers. The 
fare from Puget Sound to the gold fields, meals and berth 
included, is only $200 first-class. Competition may reduce 
this to $150, or even $100, for ordinary second-class accommo- 
dations. Steerage passengers must furnish their own bed- 
ding. As all the streams in the immediate neighborhood of 
the Klondike have already been taken up (see map for par- 
ticulars), persons of limited means are advised to wait until 
spring and go by this route. In doing so, they will pass both 
Circle City and Forty-Mile, near which some of the best 
placer mines on the American continent have been discovered, 
and were being worked at great profit before they were 
abandoned in the great rush for the Klondike. These districts 



36 PLACER MINING. 

are located entirely within American territory. Millions of 
dollars' worth of gold will undoubtedly be taken from these 
at present abandoned mining districts within the next few 
years. Navigation on the Yukon closes in September and 
opens in June. As the head waters are much farther south 
than the mouth, the break-up begins in the upper river and 
tributaries, and the ice, which freezes 5 feet thick in winter, 
packs and crushes its way towards the deltas. Navigation 
between Circle City and Dawson is possible sometimes a 
month before steamers can enter the mouth of the Yukon 
from St. Michael's on the upward trip. 

One great disadvantage of going by the all-water route is 
that the best part of the season is gone before one can reach 
the mining fields. 

The boats which ply up and down the Yukon calculate on 
making only two round trips during the season, and some- 
times make but one. Two hundred passengers who left 
Puget Sound as early as July 22, 1897, for Dawson, via St. 
Michael's, were stranded on the Yukon flats, five hundred 
miles below Dawson, and had to turn back. The lightest 
draft boats carrying provisions could not get up the river 
in August and September because of the low water. Several 
thousand men who started in July and August via St. 
Michael's were stranded for the winter on that cold and deso- 
late island or a short distance up the Yukon. Several hundred, 
however, were fortunate enough to reach Rampart City, at 
the mouth of Munook Creek, half way up the Yukon, and as 
rich strikes have been made in that neighborhood they are 
perhaps as well off as though they had reached Dawson. 
The gold here is heavy and coarse, running $18 and 
$19 to the ounce. The mines begin twenty-four miles up 
Munook Creek from Rampart City. In September, Munook 
claims were selling for $6,500 each. Gold was plentiful, and 



PLACER MINING. 31 

it was believed that winter work would prove them very rich. 
Gold has also been found on the Tanana River, a short dis- 
tance below the Munook. The Tanana is a large river with 
many tributaries, offering a large district in which to 
prospect. It is 900 miles from St. Michael's to the 
mouth of the Tanana, 80 miles from there to the Munook, 
450 miles from Munook to Circle City, 240 miles from 
Circle City to Forty-Mile, and 52 miles from Forty-Mile to 
Dawson. 

The first vessel sailing in the spring from Puget Sound for 
St. Michael's leaves in April or May. The steamers start in 
May and June, as the Yukon River does no; open at its 
mouth until the latter month. 

Several parties have formed to take flat-bottom river boats 
to the Yukon in the knock down, and set them up there. A 
flat-bottom river steamer can be built for $1,000 to carry a 
party of ten with their provisions and supplies. Boats to 
carry parties of 100 to 200 cost $8,000 to $14,000. 

THE WHITE PASS ROUTE. 

The White Pass route starts from Skagway City, which is 
five miles below Dyea. From the harbor, where there is a 
long wharf to deep water, the trail follows the Skagway River 
to its head, which is near the summit of the pass, a distance 
of 16 miles. The first four miles are in the bed of the river, 
and the ascent is gradual. At four miles the canyon is 
reached, and here the route becomes more difficult. For 
seven miles the trail works its way along the mountain side, 
rising steadily for almost the entire distance. This is the 
only hard part of the route. The next three miles is a gentle 
rise, and they carry the trail to the summit, an elevation of 
2,600 feet above the sea-level. This is 1,000 feet lower than 
the summit of the Chilkoot Pass, bu t, because of the impassable 



38 PLACER MINING. 

condition of the trail, has been quite disappointing to those 
who have tried to go over it. Surveys are being made for a 
railroad across White Pass, which will undoubtedly be built 
next year. 

THE COPPER RIVER ROUTE. 

The Copper River route is by steamer from Juneau to 
Valdes Inlet on Prince William Sound. From Valdes the 
passage to the Copper River is in a northeasterly direction 
over a dead glacier, which may be readily traversed during 
most of the year. The Indians living on the upper waters 
of the Copper River come out by that route on their semi- 
annual trading trips. The trail strikes Copper River about 
100 miles north of its mouth, thereby avoiding the rapids, 
canyons, and glaciers that have prevented the successful 
passage of the river. It then proceeds up the Chittyna, the 
main branch of the Copper River, crosses the divide at 
Scoloi Pass, and goes down the White River to the Yukon. 
Some claim that the building of a railroad to the Yukon is 
entirely feasible by the Valdes route from Prince William 
Sound, and surveys are to be made in 1898. 

One advantage of going by the Copper River route is that 
very good diggings are reported to have been found along 
the stream, some prospectors going so far as to state that 
the placers of Copper River are as rich if not richer than 
Klondike. Some of the Copper River Indians, however, are 
savage and well armed. They resent the coming of whites 
to take their gold. Frequently white miners are driven out 
of the country by the Indians, some of whom, particularly 
the Stik tribe, are mixed with Russian Finns and are vicious 
and aggressive. They are good shots, and, besides, from 
their places of vantage in the canyons they can resist a 
large body of white men. Several parties are organizing to 
explore the Copper River in the spring of 1898. The mem- 



PLACER MINING. 39 

hers of these parties are all well armed. Oneof their number 
saw, while passing through the Copper River country, 
squaws with bracelets of virgin gold which had been beaten 
out of nuggets. 

THE DALTOX ROUTE. 

The Dalton trail leaves tidewater at Chilkat, a landing 
to the west and north of Dyea, and runs over a eomparatively 
easy pass to the north of Chilkoot Pass, continuing to the 
westward of the lake country and striking the Yukon above 
Fort Selkirk, a distance from Chilkat of about 400 miles. 
This is the usual route for driving in beef cattle, as the 
pasturage, May to September, is good all the way over to 
the river. In taking in beef cattle over the Dalton trail, 
some prospectors have placed light packs on the cattle and 
succeeded in that way in getting their supplies in. Beef 
cattle costing $20 at Tacoma have been sold at Dawson City 
at from S700 to $900, where beef was worth 75c. to $1 per 
pound. 

It is believed by many that this will ultimately be a popu- 
lar route to the mines. It will be made passable for wagons 
as early as practicable in the summer of 1898, and it has even 
been proposed to construct a railroad along this entire route. 
Gold has been discovered on this route, about midway 
betw T een Chilkat Pass and Fort Selkirk. 

THE CHILKAT ROUTE. 

This route is up the Chilkat Inlet, which enters the 
Lynn Canal a few miles below Dyea, thence up the Chilkat 
River and over Chilkat Pass (which is said to be about 1,000 
feet lower than the Chilkoot Pass) and down the Tahkeena 
River to its junction with the Fifty-Mile River below White 
Horse Rapids. As the Chilkat Pass is 25 miles longer than 
the Chilkoot Pass, it is not much used at the present time. 



40 PLACER MINING. 

THE STICKEEN ROUTE. 

Goods and passengers intended for this route have to t>6 
transshipped from ocean-going steamers to river steamers at 
Fort Wrangel. The Stickeen, under favorable circum- 
stances, is navigable for stern-wheel steamers of light draft 
and good power to Telegraph Creek, 140 miles from its 
mouth. The river usually opens for navigation between 
April 20th and May 1st. On the lowlands there is good 
grazing for horses and cattle from April 20th to about 
December 1st. The distance from the Stickeen at Tele- 
graph Creek to Teslin Lake, the source of the Hootalinqua 
River, is about 120 miles. The portage is through a partly 
open and partly wooded country, somewhat rolling but not 
rough. A pack trail runs from Telegraph Creek to the head 
of the lake. At the head of Teslin Lake there is plenty of 
timber for whipsawing lumber to build boats for the voyage 
down the river to Dawson, or lumber may be purchased at 
the small sawmill now in operation there. From the 
Hootalinqua, the balance of the journey to the gold fields is 
by the same route as that described under the head of 
Chilkoot Pass route. From the head of Teslin Lake to the 
Klondike is 584 miles. 

THE OVERLAND ROUTE. 

This route starts from Ashcroft, B. C. The distance to 
Stuart Lake can be traveled with ease by pack train. No 
feed need be carried for horses, as there is an abundance of 
grass the entire distance. From Fort James (on Stuart 
Lake), the route is to Telegraph Creek, over prairie country. 
From this point the balance of the journey is the same as 
via the Stickeen route. If desired, the journey from Tele- 
graph Creek to the Yukon may be made by the somewhat 
lengthy route via Dease Lake, Frances River, and Pelly 
River, which is said to be very easy. 



PLACER MINING. 41 

THE TAKOU ROUTE. 

This route is from the head of Takou Inlet, a little south of 
Juneau, overland by the valley of the Takou River to Lake 
Teslin, from which the balance of the journey is the same as 
via the Stickeen route. The gold fields can also be reached 
by the way of Edmonton, on the Canadian Pacific Railway, 
thence via the McKenzie, Frances, and Pelly Rivers. 



CHAPTER VI. 

MINING REGULATIONS OF ALASKA. 

The misunderstanding and contentions regarding the 
laws that are applicable to Alaska, so far as the lands and 
claims are concerned, have been set at rest by a statement 
made by Commissioner Hermann, of the General Land Office. 
Many inquiries on this question have come to the Interior 
Department, and numerous applications have been made for 
copies of the Public Land Laws, which, however, do not apply 
to Alaska. All this is due to the gold boom. The General 
Land Office officials have taken much interest in the reports 
that come from the gold belt, and have investigated the 
laws that govern them. 

Commissioner Hermann says these laws are applicable: 

VARIOUS LAWS. 

1. The Mineral Land Laws of the United States. 

2. Town site laws which provide for the incorporation of 
town sites and acquirement of title thereto from the United 
States Government to the town site trustees. 

3. The law providing for trade and manufactures, giving 
each qualified person 160 acres of land in a square and com- 
pact form. 

The coal land regulations are distinct from the mineral 
regulations or laws, and the jurisdiction of neither coal laws 
nor public land laws extends to Alaska, the Territory being 
expressly excluded by the laws themselves from their oper- 
ation. The Act approved May 17, 1884, providing for civil 
government of Alaska, has this language as to mines and 
mining privileges: 



PLACER MINING. 43 

MINING CLAIMS. 

"The laws of the United States relating to mining claims 
and rights incidental thereto shall, on and after the passage 
of this act, be in full force and effect in said district of 
Alaska, subject to such regulations as may be made by the 
Secretary of the Interior and approved by the President, and 
parties who have located mines or mining privileges thereon 
under the United States laws applicable to the public 
domain, or have occupied or improved or exercised acts of 
ownership over such claims, shall not be disturbed therein, 
but shall be allowed to perfect title by payments provided 
for." 

There is still more general authority. The Act of July 4, 
1866, says: 

"All valuable mineral deposits in lands belonging to the 
United States, both surveyed and unsurveyed, are hereby 
declared to be free and open to exploration and purchase, 
and lands in which these are found to occupation and pur- 
chase by citizens of the United States, and by those who 
have declared an intention to become such under the rules 
prescribed by law, and according to local customs or rules 
of miners in the several mining districts, so far as the same 
are applicable and not inconsistent with the laws of the 
United States." 

The patenting of mineral lands in Alaska is not a new 
thing, for that work has been going on as the cases have 
come in from time to time since 1884. 

ALASKA MINING CODE. 

The United States mining code applies in the Territory of 
Alaska, but miners' law, which agrees with the Federal law, 
has prevailed, pending the appointment of the proper 
officials to carry out the full provisions of the statutes. The 



U PLACER MINING. 

genera] law, covering quartz and placer claims, condensed 
into brief space, is as follows : 

QUARTZ DEPOSITS. 

Quartz Land. — Mining claims upon ledges or lodes of 
precious metals can be taken up along the vein to the length 
of 1,500 feet and 300 feet each side of the middle of the vein. 
To secure patent, $500 worth of work must be performed 
and $5 an acre paid for the land — twenty acres. Six months' 
failure to do work forfeits the claim. 

PLACER CLAIMS. 

Placer Land. — Claims usually called " placers," including 
all forms of deposit, excepting veins of quartz or other 
rock in place, are subject to entry and patent. No single 
individual can locate more than twenty acres of placer 
land, and no location can be made by any company com- 
posed of no less than eight bona-fide locators, exceeding 160 
acres. The price per acre of placer claims is $2.50. Where 
placers contain veins or lodes, the cost per acre is $5. 

It is important that locators accurately mark and describe 
their claims. In marking, the locator may do so in any 
direction that will not interfere with the rights or claims 
existing prior to his discovery. Litigation, expense, and 
delay may be avoided by being particular in the matter of 
boundaries. The essentials are : 

First — That the corners should be marked on the ground 
by stakes in mounds of earth or rock, or by marked trees 
or other natural objects. 

Second — The notice of location should describe these 
corners so that they can be identified on the ground by the 
description, and, in addition, the direction and distance of 
one of the corners from a Government corner (if surveyed) 
or well-known object, such as a junction of roads, trails, or 



PLACER MINING. i:, 

ravines, a bridge, building' of any kind, or natural feature, 
as rock, etc. 

PENALTIES. 

It is a felony to sell a salted mine; to fraudulently change 
samples or assays with intent to defraud; to make or give 
false assay or sample with intent to defraud; to rob vein, 
sluice-box, quartz mill, etc., or trespassing upon mining 
claim with intent to commit a felony. 

It is a misdemeanor to deface, tear down, or destroy a 
post, monument, boundary mark, or location notice; or with- 
out authority to take water from any ditch, pipe, reservoir, 
etc., or to unlawfully interfere with the same. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MINING REGULATIONS OF N. W. CANADA. 

The following is a summary of the principal regulations 
made by the Canadian Government regarding placer mining 
along the Yukon River and its tributaries in the Northwest 
Territories, corrected to August 21, 1897: 

In these regulations, "bar diggings" mean parts of a 
river which are flooded at high water but are not covered at 
low water. Mines on benches are called " bench diggings." 
"Dry diggings" mean mines over which a river never ex- 
tends. "Claim " means the right to a diggings during the 
time for which the grant is made. A claim does not include 
any special surface rights. " Legal post " means a stake or 
stump standing four feet above the ground, and squared on 
four sides for at least one foot from the top. Both sides so 
squared must measure at least four inches across the face. 
"Close season" means the period during which placer 
mining is generally suspended, and is fixed by the Gold 
Commissioner in whose district the claim is situated. 
" Locality " means the territory along a river (tributary of 
the Yukon River) and its affluents. " Mineral " includes all 
minerals other than coal. Claims are measured horizontally, 
irrespective of the surface of the ground. Miners must be 
over 18 years of age. 

BAR, DRY, AND BENCH DIGGINGS. 

Bar diggings are strips of land 100 feet wide at high- 
water mark, and thence extending into the river to its lowest 
water-level. Their sides are formed by two parallel lines run 
as nearly as possible at right angles to the stream, and must 



PLACER MINING. 47 

be marked by tour legal posts, one at each end of the claim at 
or about high-water mark, also one at each end of the claim 
at or about the edge of the water. One of the posts at high- 
water mark must be legibly marked with the name of the 
miner and the date upon which the claim was staked. Dry 
diggings and bench diggings are 100 feet square and are 
staked in the same way. 

CREEK AND RIVER CLAIMS. 

Creek and river claims are 100 feet long (discoverers of 
new mines or of new auriferous strata, in a locality where 
the claims are abandoned, are entitled to claims of double 
this length) measured in the direction of the general course 
of the stream, extending in width from base to base of the 
hill or bench on each side, but when the hills or benches are 
less than 100 feet apart, the claim may be 100 feet in depth. 
The sides consist of two parallel lines run as nearly as pos- 
sible at right angles to the stream, and must be marked with 
legal posts at the edge of the water and at the rear bound- 
aries of the claim. One of the posts at the stream must be 
marked as above. 

Entry is granted only for alternate claims, the other 
alternate claims being reserved for the Government, to be 
disposed of at public auction. The penalty for trespassing 
upon a claim reserved for the Government is the forfeiture 
of all mining rights. 

RECORDING CLAIMS. 

A claim must be staked out as soon as located, and must 
then be recorded with the Gold Commissioner in whose dis- 
trict it is situated, within three days, if it is within ten miles 
of the Commissioner's office. One extra day is allowed for 
making such record for every additional ten miles. An 
entry fee of $15 is charged the first year, and an annual fee 



48 PLACER MINING. 

of $15 for each of the following years. In addition, a 
royalty of ten per cent, on the gold mined is collected, and 
in case the amount taken, from any single claim exceeds five 
hundred dollars per week, there is collected upon the excess 
a royalty of twenty per cent. Default or fraud in payment 
of the royalty is punished by cancelation of the claim. 

After the recording of a claim, the removal of any post 
for the purpose of changing the boundaries of the claim acts 
as a forfeiture of the claim. 

The entry of every holder of a grant must be renewed 
and his receipt relinquished and replaced every year, the 
entry fee being paid each time. 

No miner can receive a grant of more than one mining 
claim in the same locality, but the same miner may hold 
any number of claims by purchase, and any number of 
miners may unite to work their claims in common upon such 
terms as they may arrange, provided such agreement be 
registered with the Gold Commissioner and a fee of $5 paid 
for each registration. 

Any miner may sell, mortgage, or dispose of his claim, 
provided such disposal be registered with, and a fee of $2 
paid to, the Gold Commissioner. The Gold Commissioner 
may grant to holders such right of entry upon adjacent 
claims as may be necessary for the working of their claims, 
upon such terms as may to him seem reasonable. Every 
miner is entitled to the use of a share of the water naturally 
flowing through or past his claim. 

A claim is deemed to be abandoned and open to occu- 
pation and entry by any person when it has remained un- 
worked on working days for the space of seventy-two hours, 
unless sickness or other reasonable cause be shown to the 
satisfaction of the Gold Commissioner, or unless the grantee 
is absent on leave given by the Commissioner. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE ORIGIN OF GOLD PLACERS. 

For those fragmentary deposits carrying gold known as 
"placers," we are indebted primarily to the great glaciers of 
the Ice Age, and after them, to the rivers of both past and 
present, and, in a more local and restricted sense, to the 
waves of the sea. 

We might imagine what the mountains of the world would 
have been without these active agents of erosion. We may 
conceive of them as vast, smooth, rolling billows of strata, 
occasionally broken by stupendous cliffs, the result of pro- 
found faulting. As mineral veins are mainly due to the 
action of hot springs, geysers, fumaroles, etc., we might 
have noticed here and there along such lines of fault-fissure, 
mounds of tufa, of calcareous or siliceous matter, like those 
around the geysers of the Yellowstone, marking the position 
of the veins below in process of filling and formation. 

THE WORK OF GLACIERS. 

On such an uneroded country, let the glaciers be set to 
work, filling every fold and undulation of the surface. The 
ice sheets would plane off the tops of the mountains, expo- 
sing the rings of strata composing them, and the ice tongues, 
or glaciers, descending from the sheet, would cut deep, 
broad, U-shaped swathes down the sides of the hills, as 
shown in Fig. 1, and by mighty canyons expose the anatomy 
of the mountains and the veins in them. The debris from 
this planing would be distributed in windrows on the sides 
of the canyons and in moraines along ravines, to be win- 
nowed and assorted by subsequent streams and rivers, and 




50 PLACER MINING. 

the finer material carried out onto and distributed over the 
plains, forming soil for the agriculturist, and a part to the 
ocean to form sea-bottoms. 

ORIGIN OF DRIFT GOLD. 

If all the gold that has thus been spread far and wide in 
minute grains by these agencies could be collected, it would 

»— - — — --- - -^- - — :..____ —r ** ar exceed all that 

has been, is, or ever 
will be, obtained by 
man in his puny 
efforts at vein and 
placer mining and 
sand washing. We 
cannot suppose 
that all this gold, so 
iiSBHto widely distributed 
p IG j over the earth's sur- 

face, found more or less in ever) 7 stream, and even among 
the waves of the seashore, and in regions far remote from any 
known gold veins or ore deposits, could all have come from 
well-defined, gold-bearing, quartz-fissure veins, but rather 
from the general breaking up of vast bodies and even moun- 
tains of crystalline rocks, such as granites, porphyries, lavas, 
and other igneous rocks containing more or less gold dis- 
seminated in minute particles throughout their masses. 

ANCIENT PLACER FORMATIONS. 

Though modern placer deposits are generally conceded to 
have been laid down by the action of comparatively recent 
glaciers, streams, and other bodies of water, in more or less 
loose, incoherent banks, yet there are other, far older for- 
mations, firmly consolidated into rock, which may be con- 



PLACER MINING. 



51 



sidered as ancient placers, having had the same alluvial ori- 
gin as modern placers, and withal gold-bearing, such, for 
instance, as the uptilted gold-bearing conglomerates of the 
Transvaal (Fig. 2), and the gold-bearing Cambrian quartzites 



Black Reef 



Main Gold 
VaalReef Jiearin Series 




Fig. 2. 



of the Black Hills of Dakota. These are but ancient placers, 
river beds, or sea beaches containing gold, consolidated by 
time into hard gold-bearing rock, and tilted up by the up- 
heaval of the mountains. 



REGIONS OF GLACIATION AND PLACER FORMATION. 

Since glaciers are the parents of most of our large placer 
deposits, we must look for such deposits principally in those 
northern and mountainous regions which have been most sub- 
ject to the reign of glaciers. Such, for instance, is Alaska, 
with its coast line torn to tatters by long glacial fiords, and 
its mountain ranges cloven through and through by the 
passage of ancient and modern glaciers, and the whole 
region, as well as that of the adjacent British Columbia, 
traversed by a network of streams and narrow lakes derived 
directly or indirectly from the glaciers. The same phenom- 
ena exist all through the Sierra region, down the Pacific 
coast to Southern California, and also in Idaho, Washington, 
and other northern regions. In all these, the placer depos- 
its, both by glacier and stream, are often to be estimated by 
the hundreds of feet in thickness, while as we retreat inland 



52 PLACER MINING. 

towards the Rocky Mountain region, where precipitation was 




Colliery Engineer §■ Metal Miner 



Fig. 3. 



less, the deposits decrease in size and thickness. The placer 
areas are represented by the shaded portions of Fig. 3. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF PLACER 

MINING. 



Gold washing of alluvial deposits, both in ancient and 
modern times, preceded 
vein, or lode, mining. In 
ancient times, vein mining 
seems to have been almost 
unknown; the gold of the 
ancients was entirely de- 
rived from the sands of 
streams. In modern times, 
while placer mining pre- 
ceded, it often led to the 
discovery of veins and the 
developing of ore deposits 
in place. The discovery of 
goldatColoma, near Sutter's 
Mill, California, in 1848, by James Marshall, is a well-known 
story. Marshall, while digging a race for a sawmill, found 
some pieces of yellow metal which he thought might be gold, 
a suspicion confirmed by one of his workmen, who had worked 
gold in Georgia. By the help of a "rocker," Marshall 
gleaned about an ounce of gold dust. (See Fig. 4.) This 
discovery led to examination of other California rivers 
having their sources in the Sierras, and soon every stream 
along the western slope of the Sierras was being worked 
for gold. 




Fig. 4. 



54 



PLACER MINING. 



DEVELOPMENT OF PLACER MINING APPLIANCES, 

At first only the crudest appliances were used, such as 
pick, shovel, pan, and rocker. Later the "Long Tom" 

sluice was introduced. 
Work on dry bars led to 
mining river bottoms by 
wing dams; then streams 
were turned from their 
natural courses by big 
flumes and ditches. 
From the shallow placers, 
the miners pushed back 
to the deep deposits, and 
worked them by Long 
Tom sluices. As the 
deep deposits of gravel 
were often poorer than 
the shallow placers, open 
cuts were necessary, and 
long sluices were found 
to run dirt faster than 
shovelers could supply it, 
Edward Mattison, of Connecticut, thought he could dispense 
with the pick and shovel by using a stream of water under 
pressure to break down the banks of loose debris, and he 
conveyed a stream through a rawhide hose with a wooden 
nozzle, and discharged it against the bank, as shown in Fig. 
5. The earth was torn from the bank and carried into 
sluices, dispensing with the labor of shoveling. This was 
the beginning of hydraulic mining. 

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF PLACER MINING. 

The placer miner takes advantage of the natural forces 
that have been acting for ages. Frost, ice, mountain 
torrents, and the decay of rocks have broken down veins, 




PLACER MINING. 



oo 



liberated gold, and distributed it under gravel and sand in 
beds of both ancient and existing streams. These forces 
having done their work, the miner clears up and harvests 
what nature has mined for him. The operations of nature 
have been so vast, and so gigantic are the deposits, that 
pick, shovel, and pan are frequently inadequate, and more 
powerful appliances are required ; thus, powder blows up the 




Fig. 6. 

deep, solid deposits, water under pressure undermines and 
washes away high banks of gravel, cranes and hoisting 
apparatus carry off the huge boulders, while for harder 
deposits stamp mills are requisite. Water is directed against 
a gold-bearing bank with the momentum acquired by falling 
from an elevation, or with the gentler force of a shorter fall 
if it runs down a sloping channel. The first is the hydraulic 



56 PLACER MINING. 

process; the second is sluicing. The first breaks up and 
disintegrates; the second assorts and concentrates. In 
hydraulic mining, the two are combined into one operation. 
Water, falling through pipes from a height of one hundred 
or two hundred feet, is delivered through nozzles in contin- 
uous streams against a bank of earth, undermining it. (See 
Fig. 6.) The overhanging masses fall to the base, and are 
loosened and broken apart; the water penetrates every 
crack and pore ; large boulders are thrown aside like pebbles ; 
the whole mass is stirred and mingled, while the accumulated 
waters, thick with sand and earth, flow away down the 
slope, leaving the larger boulders and gold resting, clean 
washed, on the surface of the bed-rock. This process is 
applicable where the deposits above the lower gold-bearing 
stratum are so thick that they cannot be removed by dig- 
ging. To do this there are required : First, a sufficient head 
or height and quantity of water; second, a rapid fall or slope 
from the base of the bank, so that water will flow swiftly 
away and carry the loosened gravel, sand, and earth with it. 

ORIGIN OF FLUMES AND DITCHES. 

In California and other gold-mining districts, high moun- 
tains give rise to numerous streams flowing towards and 
across the gold region, and the deep valleys and ravines per- 
mit of ample fall and drainage. These streams have to be 
diverted from their course and carried in ditches and flumes 
many miles, along easy grades. The best gold deposits are 
in trough-like basins, hemmed in by rocky walls, through 
which artificial outlets must be cut to get drainage. When 
the position, depth, and richness of a deposit are adapted to 
hydraulic mining, an outlet must be provided for the water. 
It may be there by nature, or it may involve the cutting of 
a tunnel through the "rim-rock" from an adjoining ravine 
to tap the lowest part of the basin and secure a vertical 



PLACER MINING. 57 

fall of from 50 to 100 feet to the base of the deposit. 
Many years and great sums of money have been spent 
on these undertakings. These tunnels may vary from a 
few hundred feet to a mile or more in length; their average 
dimensions are from six to eight feet wide by seven feet high. 
In 1867, in California, there were 5,328 miles of artificial 
ditches, according to Blake, and 800 miles more of subsidiary 
ones, cut into the earth of the hillsides and crossing rocky 
points and deep valleys by flumes and pipes. 

EXAMPLES OF DITCHES AND FLUMES. 

There were ditches eight feet wide at the top, six feet 
wide at the bottom, and three feet deep, with a grade of 
from twelve feet to eighteen feet per mile. Large sheet-iron 
pipes were found better than wooden flumes and were gen- 
erally adopted. One flume was 1,300 feet long, 260 feet 
above the surface, and supported on wooden towers. On 
the Truckee (or U) ditch there were thirteen miles of flume, 
eight feet wide and four feet deep, hung on the side of a 
deep canyon. 

ORIGIN OF THE USE OF PIPES. 

Flumes are difficult to keep in repair and are liable to be 
broken or blown down, and if left dry the boards warp and 
split, and the repairs of a flume cost 90 per cent, more than 
those of a ditch; hence, the substitution of wooden and iron 
pipes. Pipes, moreover, prevent loss of w r ater by evapora- 
tion. Wooden pipes are made up of wooden staves bound 
together by round iron bands. Iron pipes are of stout sheet 
iron or boiler iron, and are made either in short joints, 
several of which are riveted together, forming sections about 
20 feet long, or of continuous helical strips (the so-called 
"spiral-riveted" pipe) running the full length of a section. 
The thickness of the iron and the number and size of the 
rivets depend upon the pressure of the water; the smaller 



58 



PLACER MINING. 



pipes are from 7 toll inches in diameter and are usually 
made of No. 20 iron. The sections are united on the ground 
and secured by wire wound around projecting eaves or hooks 
of iron upon each end of each section. The whole pipe is 
firmly fastened to the surface by posts set in the ground, to 
prevent it from rolling down slopes or being carried away 
by freshets or snowslides. In El Dorado County, California, 
a pipe is used to carry 50 inches of water across a valley 
1,600 feet wide and 90 feet deep. The pipe is 10 inches in 
diameter, of iron -^ inch thick ; the supply is 90 feet higher 
than the delivery. Ditches are often built by companies, and 
the water sold to the miner at so much per miner's inch per 
day of 10 hours. 

DISTRIBUTION OF GOLD IN DEPOSITS. 

In a few cases, gold is rich in thin streaks of cemented 
gravel and alluvions on the top gravel, Even in high banks, 

the upper " top gravel," if of a fine, 
light, quartz wash, without boulders, 
has been washed at a profit; hence, 
the miner tests the whole deposit. A 
fine lamina is sometimes found at 
grass roots. Pay gravel may oc- 
cur high above bed-rock, but gener- 
ally the top gravel is not rich enough 
to pay, the gold concentrating in 
those strata within a few feet of bed- 
rock and on and in bed-rock itself. 
A section of a placer bed from sur- 
face to bed-rock is shown in Fig. 7. 
Sand is generally poorer than 
gravel or boulders. Rich pay may 
FlG - 7 - occur in undulations and depressions 

of bed-rock; on the other hand, deep holes caused by water- 



Valve 
per Cu Yd 



^r 




PLACER MINING. 



50 



falls are often, contrary to expectations, unproductive. 
Accumulations may assume the form of reclining cones, the 
apex resting on the top of the hillock, the gold being 
concentrated in the lower end of the deposit. 

Placers in place, that is, lying in a gold vein, may contain 
deposits similar in quantity and distribution to those of the 
original vein on which they lie. 

Placers of accumulation are the richest where the current 
of the stream was interrupted by diminution in its fall, by 
sudden change of direction, entrance of tributaries, or by 
reefs, bars, and eddies. (See (a), Fig. 8). Small depres- 





Wk mm - 



(d) • 



Fig. 8. 






sions, creases, holes, and fissures (A, A) in bed-rock over 
which the current passes are likely to be rich. (See {b) and 
(^), Fig. 8.) As there are at times, in some placers, different 
periods of deposition, the lowest layers of each period are 
apt to be the richest. Several periods of deposition may 
have succeeded one another, and several rich strata occur on 
the same ground. Not only the courses of present streams, 
but also the channels of ancient rivers, are localities of 



60 PLACER MINING. 

placers; the latter are the so-called "deep leads." (See (d), 
Fig. 8.) 

Alluvial layers may, at intervals, by a cementing process, 
form a seeming bed-rock, called a false bottom. There may 
be one or more such false bottoms before the true bed-rock 
is reached, and gold may occur on each of these. 

Placers have generally been formed of material transport- 
ed some distance by glaciers and drifts, but placer diggings 
sometimes occur on the very outcrop of decomposed gold 
veins, and are called "placers in loco," or in place. The 
deep leads were the work of a river system quite distinct 
from that now existing. Modern rivers, cutting across these 
old river courses, have redistributed their golden sands. 
Placers, as a rule, are much richer than the veins from which 
they have been derived. 

Gold dust, under certain favorable chemical conditions, 
may amalgamate into masses, forming nuggets, such as are 
rarely found in veins. Shallow placers are often due entire- 
ly to the disintegration of quartz veins near by ; in such 
cases, the drift will be barren above the point where the reef 
or vein crosses it. Plain diggings present a great variety, 
both in character and material of deposits. 

Gold alluvions occur in river channels, in basins, and on 
flats, as surface deposits of sand and gravel, and as accumu- 
lations of clay, sand, gravel, pebbles, and boulders of all. 
sizes, with, in some cases, caps of lava. Shallow placers are 
those whose deposits vary from a few inches to several feet, 
as distinct from deep placers, which cover large areas and 
are frequently several hundred feet in depth. 

" Hill claims " are deposits of gravel on hills. 

" Bench claims " are deposits occurring in bench-like forms 
on declivities above the line of existing rivers. 

" Gulch diggings" are found in gulches and ravines. 



PLACER MINING. 6] 

tk Flat deposits" occur in small plains,' or " flats. r 

" Bar claims " are bars of sand and gravel on the sides of 
streams above water-level. 

" Black sands " are the g'old-bearing sands of the seashore. 

kk Surface mining " and " deep mining " are the two main 
divisions of placer mining. "Sluice," "drift," and "hy- 
draulic digging " are local names. 

EXAMPLES OF PLACER BANKS. 

In the Ballarat gold fields of Victoria, the wash dirt is in 
a series of leads of varying widths, starting from the same 
point and trending in different directions towards the deep 
leads. In one placer, the width of the gutter and reef wash 
was 100 feet, and the depth of pay dirt 5 feet. The barren 
drifts overlying the pay dirt were of black clay, the reef of 
green slate, and the bottom of sandstone. At another place, 
wash dirt 6 feet thick was of a dark blue granite or green 
slate. At Melbourne, the formation is Upper Silurian schist, 
traversed by a metalliferous eruption of dikes. The gold 
lies in crevices in the rotten bed-rock, and in "potholes" in 
the ancient river bottoms. Nuggets have been found in 
soft clay and in the face of bed-rock. 



CHAPTER X. 

METHODS OF WORKING-SURFACE MINING; 

WORKING FROZEN GROUND : DRIFTING ; 

HYDRAULICKING. 

Surface mining is applied to operations in shallow placers, 
and in new districts frequently gives very large returns. 
These deposits are, however, limited in extent and soon 
worked out. In localities where water was scarce, dry wash- 
ing was formerly resorted to. Selected rich dirt was pul- 
verized and worked in a batea, or wooden dish, the earthy 
portions being separated by a circular motion given the dish. 
Gold was also extracted by winnowing. 

Along the Pacific Coast, ''beach mining" was practised. 
The gold occurs in the sands of the beaches in a very finely 
divided state, in layers of magnetic iron, or "black sand," 
where it has been concentrated by the action of wave and 
tide. By the wash of the waves, the lighter quartz sand is 
carried away, leaving the gold-bearing black sand behind, 
and this is then covered by barren material. When the tide 
ebbs, the miners scrape up the thin gold-bearing layers and 
transport the material to the washing places, where it is 
washed in sluices. These black sands assay from $10 to $30 
per ton, only a part of which, however, can be recovered. 
Platinum occurs with the gold, in less flattened grains. 

BAR AND RIVER MINING. 

In the early days, river mining was extensively carried on. 
When the portion of the bars above water-level was ex- 
hausted, the miners extended their operations to those parts 
under water. This necessitated the streams being dammed 



PLACER MINING. 



63 




FTG. 9. 



or diverted into a new channel (see Fig. 9). Beds of rivers 
for long distances were laid bare, and much expense and 
risk were incurred from floods and breaking of dams ; yet, 
though the losses were 
often great, the profits 
obtained in a short time 
were sometimes enor- 
mous. In some cases, 
instead of turning a 
river from its course, 
dredging machines have 
been used for the pur- 
pose of raising the mate- 
rial to the surface, where 
it is washed in the usual 
manner for its gold 
contents. The Santa Fe Placer Mining Company is mining 
the beds of the Galisteo River and the Rio Grande by 
dredging. For this purpose, the Nettleton placer machine 
was designed. This machine is simply a powerful steam 
bucket dredge, with a capacity of one cubic yard of material 
per minute, having as an auxiliary a 6-inch centrifugal 
pump, whose suction pipe will extend down the dredge ladder 
to within 12 inches of the lowest point reached by the 
buckets. It is claimed that this pump will not only bring 
up the necessary water for sluicing, but also such loose ma- 
terial as may be left by the buckets, and will in a great 
measure clear the bed-rock of gold. The product of the 
dredge and pump is deposited in a sluice-box 25 feet above 
the deck of the barge, from which elevation the work is 
done by gravity until the material and water are disposed of. 
Passing down the first sluice of 30 feet, a grizzly or grating- 
is reached, removing all stones over 3 inches in diameter, 



64 PLACER MINING. 

the finer material passing through screens which further re- 
duce it to one-half inch and smaller. So the non-productive 
material is removed at once and deposited behind the barge. 
The percentage of fine flour gold being very large, the ma- 
terial is passed over a burlap sluice, the fibers of which ar- 
rest and hold the gold. The usual accompanying " black" 
or magnetic sand carries a great deal of gold, as much, at 
times, so it is reported, as $2,000 per ton. To save this, 
after passing the burlap the matter comes in contact with 
strong magnets placed in the circumference of a cylinder, 
the iron adhering to the magnets, from which it is removed 
by a revolving brush, the non-magnetic matter passing on 
to a revolving screen, where it is reduced to yL- inch, prepara- 
tory to being run over amalgamated plates, such as are used 
in stamp mills, or into a series of boxes containing quick- 
silver. By this time all collectible gold will have been 
caught, and after being run out through traps to save any 
stray amalgam or quicksilver, the now barren material will 
pass into a tailings well, to be taken up by an 8-inch centrif- 
ugal pump and deposited far behind the boat. Fine sand 
settling in the riffles of the sluices or burlap may be treated 
with cyanide. Depressions in bed-rock which the dredge 
can not reach may be reached by an air caisson, and the 
bed-rock thoroughly cleaned. 

Another plan suggested is to raise the material and water 
for sluicing, with a centrifugal pump, to the amalgamating 
plant placed on the bank. Large stones and gravel from 
the screens will be deposited in the excavation back of the 
workings; the fine tailings, and the sluice and surplus 
water will be conducted down the river by flume a sufficient 
distance to prevent their return. This plan will enable the 
bed-rock depressions and crevices to be cleaned by hand at 
less expense than by dredge or caissons. The water flow of 



PLACER MINING. 



05 



the river will not exceed 1.0,000 gallons per minute during 
ten months in the year, so no great capacity of pumps will 
be needed. The natural conditions have made the Galisteo 
River a promising proposition. The extent of its gold de- 
posits can only be conjectured. 

Ground sluicing consists in treating gold-bearing gravel, 
dug out by pick and shovel, by washing it in trenches cut 
in bed-rock. It is like hydraulicking, except that the water 
is not used under pressure, and often wooden sluices are dis- 
pensed with entirely, the rough rock serving for riffles. 
The lighter material is carried away by the water, and 
the heavier dirt remaining behind is collected and worked 
by rockers. Ground sluicing is often adopted where there is 
not a sufficient amount of water for the constant use of a 
box sluice, and a head can only be gotten for a short period 
after heavy rains. A ground sluice is then used, if there is 
abundant fall and outlet for the tailings. It is a gutter 
worn by the water in its flow, the miner assisting the 
operation by loosening the 
earth with a pick. The 
pay dirt is washed in by the 
stream or conveyed thither s 
by manual labor. If the WSB. 
bottom be a hard, uneven fj|| 
rock, its inequalities will BBHIj 
suffice to arrest the gold ; if 
not, a number of boulders, 
too heavy to be moved by 
the stream, are thrown 
carelessly into the sluice, 
coarse gold. To clean up, 




Fig. 10. 



This process saves only the 
the water is diverted from 

the channel and the auriferous matter collected, to be panned 

out or cradled. 



6V PLACER MINING. 

BOOMING. 

Booming is ground sluicing on a large scale, by means of 
an intermittent supply of water. The water is collected 
behind a dam with an automatic gate (Fig. 10), which, 
when the dam is full, opens, and the entire contents of the 
reservoir go down with a rush, carrying into the sluices all 
the material collected below. The rush of waters carries 
off boulders and dirt, leaving the heavier particles of gold 
and magnetic iron, or black sand, collected behind on the 
bed-rock floor. 

WORKING FROZEN GROUND. 

In the placer mines of Siberia and Alaska, the ground is 
frozen to a considerable depth. Frozen gravel will success- 
fully resist all attacks of pick and shovel, and its extreme 
toughness renders even drilling and blasting very tedious 
and ineffective, so the miner thaws the ground before at- 
tempting to dig it. This he accomplishes by building a fire 
against the ground to be removed. In sinking his shaft, if 
the surface is frozen, he builds a fire of wood where he 
desires to sink, and the heat from this thaws out the ground 
for some little distance. The fire is rendered more effective 
by covering it with charcoal, thus confining the heat. 
When the fire dies down, the miner scrapes aside the embers 
and shovels away the loosened ground beneath, until he 
comes once more to the frozen portion, where another fire 
is built and the whole operation repeated; and thus down 
to bed-rock. The sides of the shaft are given what little 
support is necessary by a light cribbed timbering or a rough 
square set with lagging. 

From the bottom of the shaft the miner starts his drift. 
He is obliged to thaw every foot of this, also. A strong 
wood fire is built against the face of the drift, covered with 
charcoal as before, and allowed to burn out; in other 



PLACER MINING. 



67 



respects, the work is the same as in ordinary drifting-. All 
workings must be tightly, though not heavily, timbered. 
This feature is frequently neglected, with many sad acci- 
dents as a result. Match-boards (tongued and grooved) are 
frequently used on the sides, though either round or split 
lagging will answer if closely set. In cross-cuts and cham- 
bers, the roof timbering should be entirely independent of 
that of the sides, as in Fig. 11. Large deposits are divided 




Fig. 11. 

into blocks, on the familiar pillar and stall system of coal 
mining. (See (a), Fig. 11.) 

VENTILATION. 

Any of the simple mine ventilation methods may be em- 
ployed to clear the drifts of the noxious gases generated by 
the fire, and to keep the air in the workings pure. Warm air 
and gas naturally rise to the roof of the drift and out of 
the shaft on the side nearest the drift, the cool air from the 



68 PLACER MINING. 

surface coming down the other side of the shaft and along 
the floor of the drift to the face. As the drifts get longer, 
particularly in small and low workings, the air from the 
face has more time to cool and diffuse with the fresh air, 
and the current gets weaker and weaker, so that it finally 
becomes necessary to use artificial aids to the ventilation. 
The simplest of these is by furnishing an artificial separa- 
tion for the outgoing and incoming air-currents. A brattice 
is made by fastening canvas from top to bottom along the 
middle row of posts shown in Fig. 11, or boarding up be- 
tween the posts with light plank. This is continued nearly 
to the face and usually up to the surface, dividing the work- 
ings into two passages, the cool, fresh air from above pass- 
ing down one and forcing the warm air and gas out through 
the other to the surface. If the heat of the mine does not 
create sufficient draft, a fire can be built at the uptake side of 
the shaft, the draft created by the fire assisting the natural 
draft of the mine. Ventilation may also be facilitated by 
the use of a fan, either forcing fresh air down the shaft 
or exhausting the vitiated air ; the latter form is better when 
the scale of the work is large enough to warrant the use of 
power-driven fans. For small workings, too narrow to per- 
mit division by brattices, a small hand fan may be used at 
the surface or at some point along the workings where the 
air is good, the air being carried to the face in tin or sheet- 
iron pipes or wooden boxes, and delivered towards one side 
and at the bottom of the face, this scheme giving the quick- 
est and best ventilation. For long tunnels, a furnace sys- 
tem of ventilation is frequently used, the tunnel being con- 
nected with the surface by shafts, which are sunk or upraised 
at intervals as the work progresses. The hot air and gas 
from the fire at the face rise through the nearest shaft, and 
cool, fresh air replaces them, coming down the shafts further 



PLACER MINING. 69 

back along the drift. As soon as the face gets so far beyond 
the shaft that its ventilation becomes very slow and poor, a 
new connection is made with the surface ; the use of a hand 
fan at the foot of the shaft or a light brattice carried along 
the side of the drift from the last shaft to the face, with a 
curtain behind the shaft to prevent a direct current of air 
between it and the previous shafts, and thus force the fresh 
air to follow the brattice, will allow the drift to be carried 
forwards considerably farther before again connecting with 
the surface. 

The effect of the fires in the drifts is to raise the tempera- 
ture to an oppressive point, so that, as in some of the large 
Siberian mines, the miners work stripped to the skin, though 
the temperature outside is many degrees below zero. An 
amount of wood equivalent to a thickness of one foot across 
the face will thaw out about the same depth of gravel. 
Fourteen inches, however, is about the maximum depth to 
which the thawing will extend. 

DRIFTING. 

Gold is mined in deep deposits by tunnels and drifts, 
notably in those districts where the deposits are covered by 
an overflow of lava, as in (d), Fig. 8. Drifting presupposes 
the concentration of the metal in a well-defined stratum or 
channel. When the existence of a pay channel is deter- 
mined, it is opened up and developed by a tunnel run in 
such a manner as to drain all parts of the mine. The loca- 
tion of this tunnel is a matter of great importance. If the 
channel is discovered on the hillside, and rises as it enters 
the hill, the tunnel is run along its bed, following the bed- 
rock; otherwise, the tunnel is driven below the channel, or 
through the " rim-rock," in such a position that the lowest 
point of the deposit will be above it. Sometimes shafts are 



70 



PLACER MINING. 



sunk and the gravel drifted out and raised through them to 
the surface. The tunnel once driven and the channel 
opened, drifts are run through the pay ground on both sides, 
and the material is breasted out, timbering • being used as 
required. Gravel is removed from the tunnel in mine cars, 
to the mouth, where it is dumped on floors and washed in 
sluices. When too firmly cemented for simple washing, it 
is first crushed under stamps. In some mines, steam loco- 
motives are used for transporting men and material through 
the tunnel, which may be more than a mile in length. In 



Vertical Section 




Explanations 

W%& Channel of 
H] Pay Gravel 

vyyu Lava Overflow 
^jAACovering the 
^ZzAAuriferous Gravel 

F^sSlate Bedrock 
fjj^mUnder the Gravel 












Auriferous Gravel 



Unexplored 
Ground 



mm 




~Xineof Kim JioTfc ^ast of Channel 




Fig. 12. 

the "Sunny South" mine, Placer County, California, the 
main tunnel is below the channel, as shown in Fig. 12, thus 
allowing the mine to be worked conveniently. 

HYDRAULIC MIXING. 

Hydraulic mining is that method in which the ground is 
excavated by water discharged against it under pressure. 
Deep placers, if sufficiently rich, may be worked by drifting, 
but hydraulicking is far the more economical. For hydrau- 



PLACER MINING. 71 

licking there should be ample facilities for dump and grade, 
and a sufficient head and supply of cheap water. When the 
banks are too firmly cemented or are covered with lava, blast- 
ing becomes necessary to shatter them before water can be 
advantageously employed. 

PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION OF PLACERS. 

The value of the gravel deposits is the first consideration. 
Its determination involves ascertaining the course of the 
channel, the depth and position of bed-rock, which may be 
under hundreds of feet of detritus, the size of the deposit, 
and an estimate of the yield of the ground and the cost of 
the work. The geology and topography of the deposit and 
its surroundings must be considered, to assist in determining 
the course of the channel, the depth of bed-rock, and the 
facilities for dump. The value of the gravel may be approxi- 
mated by making shallow pits and washing the material 
obtained from them and from other available placers, as 
where the bank has been exposed in section by the cutting 
of a stream. A large enterprise requires preliminary pros- 
pecting by shafts down to bed-rock and by drifts. The 
water supply and facilities for dump should be carefully 
considered, and also the length of the working season. 

Different colored gravels, red, rusty, and blue, are some- 
times considered as good signs, but are not reliable. Black 
sand is often accompanied by gold, but may be barren. 

EXAMPLES OF PROSPECTING. 

The example of the Malakoff property illustrates the pre- 
liminary work which is necessary on large deep-placer enter- 
prises. To determine the value of the claims and the 
feasibility of working them, four shafts were sunk to ascer- 
tain the position of the channel, the value of gravel, and 
the depth of bed-rock. The first shaft struck the bed-rock 



72 PLACER MINING. 

of the main tunnel at a depth of 207 feet; 135 feet of this 
was in blue gravel averaging 41 cents per cubic yard. From 
the bottom of this shaft, drifts were run on the course of 
the channel for a distance of 1,200 feet. The width of the 
channel was estimated at 500 feet. The total length of the 
explorations was over 2,000 feet. The average assay of the 
samples from the various drifts was $2.01 per cubic yard; 
the actual yield of over 21,000 tons was at the rate of $2.75 
per cubic yard. The gross cost of the preliminary work, 
including the four shafts, was $66,956.20. 



CHAPTER XI. 

WATER SUPPLY— RESERVOIRS, DAMS, AND 
MEASUREMENT OF WATER. 

RESERVOIRS— SOURCES OF WATER. 

The water supply for placer operations is obtained from 
running streams, melting snows, and rains. The snow 
accumulates on the mountains during the winter, and the 
heavy rains and warm weather of the spring season cause 
rapid thawing of these snowbanks, and enormous volumes 
of water rush down the gullies and ravines. The placer 
miner impounds this surplus water in large storage reser- 
voirs, for use during the dry season. In selecting a reser- 
voir site the following points should be observed (Bowie) : 

1. A proper elevation. 

•2. The water supply from all creeks and springs and the 
catchment area.* 

3. The amount of rain and snow-fall. 

4. The formation and character of the ground with 
reference to the amount of absorption and evaporation. 

The elevation of a reservoir depends upon the location of 
the mines and the extent of the country which it is proposed 
to cover with a ditch. The reservoir should be located 
below the snow belt, if possible, and at the lowest point of 
the catchment area, in order to obtain the maximum supply 
of water therefrom. The average and minimum supply of 
water from all streams should be carefully determined. 
Rainfall is greater in mountain districts than in lower 
countries, and greatest on the slopes facing the direction 



'Area draining into reservoir. 



74 PLACER MINING. 

from which the moist winds blow. Snowfall measurements 
are taken on a level, and a given amount of snow is reduced 
to water, and the fall calculated as rain. 

ABSORPTION AND EVAPORATION. 

The most desirable formation of ground for a reservoir 
site is one of compact rock, like granite, gneiss, or slate. 
Porous rocks, like sandstone and limestone, are not so desir- 
able, on account of their absorptive qualities. Steep, de- 
nuded slopes are best, as but little water escapes. The 
greatest slope gives the largest available quantity of water. 
Vegetation causes absorption. At the Bowman reservoir, 
in California, 75 per cent, of the total rainfall and snowfall 
(reduced to rain) is stored (Bowie). 

A reservoir must be made large enough to hold a supply 
capable of meeting the maximum demands. The area of 
the reservoir should be determined, and a table made show- 
ing its contents for every foot of depth, so that the amount 
of water available can always be known. A longitudinal 
section through the center of the reservoir, with cross- 
sections and contour lines five feet above each other, virtu- 
ally determines the height of the dam and the contents of 
the reservoir with the water at any depth. The Bowman 
reservoir contains about 1,050,000,000 cubic feet of water. 
The catchment area is 28.94 square miles. The cost of the 
reservoir and dams was $246,707.51. Besides the main res- 
ervoir, all mines have distributing reservoirs which receive 
the water from the main ditch for delivery to the under- 
ground claims. These are small and adapted only for a 
short run. 

DAMS. 

Dams are used for retaining the water in reservoirs, for 
diverting streams, and for storing in canyons debris coming 
from the mines. 



PLACER MINING. 75 

FOUNDATIONS. 

Foundations must be solid and water-tight, to prevent 
the settling of the dam, leakage under its base, and wear in 
front by water running over the top. Whenever possible, 
the foundation should be on solid rock. Gravel is better 
than earth, but requires sheet piling. Vegetable soil is un- 
reliable; all porous matter, sand, and gravel must be stripped 
off until the solid ground is reached. 

WOODEN DAMS. 

Wooden dams are constructed of round or hewn logs one 
to two feet in diameter, laid in a series of cribs 8 to 10 feet 
square and pinned together by tree-nails. These cribs are 
filled in with loose rock. A layer of planking on the face of 
the dam makes it water-tight. Abutments may be con- 
structed of stone, cement, or wooden cribs. 

MASONRY DAMS. 

The masonry of dams must be well laid in hydraulic 
cement, so that the stones cannot slide upon one another, 
and the dam as a whole so set that it cannot slide upon its 
base. Neither the material nor the foundation must be re- 
quired to bear too great a pressure. The stones must not 
be laid in horizontal courses extending from front to rear. 
Binders should be used; there should be no continuous 
joints. 

EARTHEN DAMS. 

Earthen dams are used for reservoirs of moderate depth. 
They should be at least 10 feet wide on top; a height of 
over 60 feet is unusual. Fig. 13 shows a section of the 
Bowman dam in California, which is 100 feet high and 
425 feet long. 



re 



PLACER MINING. 



WASTE DAMS. 

A waste dam is a crib of round timbers 12 to 30 inches in 
diameter, notched and bolted together, and the whole fast- 




trainer. 



M2DROCK. 

Fig. 13. 

ened to bed-rock. The cribs are filled solid with rocks. 
The dam is provided with a number of waste-gates, each 40 
to 50 square feet in area. These waste-ways are ordinarily 
kept closed, but are opened in times of freshets. The struc- 
ture should be able to withstand any flood to which it is apt 
to be subjected, the waste water passing through the wastes 
and over the crest. Water passing over the dam falls onto 
bed-rock or onto a wooden apron. 

DEBRIS DAMS. 

Debris dams are obstructions across the beds of streams 
to hold back tailings from the mines and prevent damage in 
valleys below. They may be stone, debris, wood, or brush. 

MEASUREMENT OF FLOWING WATER. 

Various forms of water meters are used for this purpose. 
Gauging by weirs of certain dimensions gives very close re- 
sults. In this method the height of the surface of still water 
above the crest and some little distance back from the weir 
must be measured. There should be no considerable current 



PLACER MINING. 



to the water at the place of measurement. Flowing water 
is also measured by its discharge, under pressure, through 
orifices of regular section. The discharge of flumes of reg- 
ular section may be calculated roughly from the mean sur- 
face velocity. An accurate calculation of the discharge of 
any stream may be made by multiplying the average velocity 
of the water at any point by the sectional area at that point. 
The discharge of small streams may be estimated by filling 
vessels of known capacity. 

A right-angled V notch of thin sheet iron is a convenient 
form of aperture for measuring the discharge of water. 




Fig. 14. 

The discharge in cubic feet per second equals 0.0051 times 
the square root of the fifth power of the head, expressed in 
inches. The notch is fitted in one end of the weir box (see 
Fig. 14). The edge of the notch must be sharp and beveled 
off, and the inside face must be at right angles to the surface 
'of the water. To keep quiet the surface of the w^ater in the 
box, above the weir, baffle-boards are placed in the upper 
end of the box. The distance a of the surface of the water 
below the top of the weir is taken at a point some distance 
back from the notch (18 to 24 inches), where the water is 
level. This distance, subtracted from the total depth H of 
the weir, gives the head // of the water passing over the weir. 
The head is obtained as follows: 



78 PLACER MINING. 

A straight-edge or level is placed on the weir plate P, 
extending back over the surface of the water in the box, 
and the distance a between its lower edge and the surface 
of the water measured. This distance subtracted from H 
(Fig. 14) leaves h. In gauging the quantity of water 
passing over a weir, the formula is 

(2=3.31 L !fi + 0.007 L. 

Q is the quantity, or the discharge, in cubic feet per second; 
L the length of the weir ; h the depth on the weir, corrected 
for velocity of approach ; for this formula // must not be less 
than 0.07 feet. 

In the accompanying table, opposite //, in the column Q, 
will be found the number of cubic feet of water flowing over 
the notch in one minute. 

THE MINER'S INCH. 

The "miner's inch " varies in every district, and is by no 
means a definite quantity, as the methods of delivering it 
differ in different places. It varies according to the head 
and the height of aperture. Usually, the head is G inches 
above the center of the aperture. The latter is a horizontal 
slit 1 inch high and 24 inches long, which can be closed so 
as to leave an opening of any desired length — 1 inch long 
giving 1 inch of water, 10 or 12 inches long giving a cor- 
responding amount of water; thus, in most districts, a 
miner's inch is considered as that quantity of water which 
will pass through an opening of 1 square inch area under a 
mean pressure, or head, of 6 inches. The quantity discharged 
from such an opening in 24 hours is equal to 2,274 cubic 
feet. A cubic foot is equal to 7.48 U. S. gallons, or 38 
miner's inches. In some counties in California there are 
10, 11, 12, and even 24-hour inches. Discharge apertures 
are rectangular, varying in width from 1 to 17 inches, and 



PLACER MINING. 



79 



DISCHARGE OF 



WATER THROUGH 
V XOTCH. 



A RIGHT-ANGLED 



* 




Quant. 


h 


Q 

Ouant. 


h 


Q 

Quant. 


// ' 


Quant. 


// 


Q 

Quant. 


Head, 


Per 


Head, 


Per 


Head, 


Per 


Head, 


Per 


Head, 


Per 


Inches. 


Min., 


Inches. 


Min., 


Inches. 


Min., 


Inches. 


Min., 


Inches. 


Min., 




Cu. Ft. 




Cu. Ft. 




Cu. Ft. 




Cu. Ft. 




Cu. Ft. 


1.05 


0.345'J 


3.25 


5.827 


5.45 


21.22 


7.65 


49.53 


9.85 


93.18 


1.10 


0.3884 


3.30 


6.054 


5.50 


21.71 


7.70 


50.34 


9.90 


94.37 


1.15 


0.4340 


3.35 


6.285 


5.55 


22.20 


7.75 


51.16 


9.95 


95.56 


1.20 


0.4827 


3.40 


6.523 


5.60 


22. 70 


7.80 


51.99 


10.00 


96.77 


1.25 


0.5345 


3.45 


6.765' 


^.(^ 


23.22 


7.85 


52.83 


10.05 


97.98 


1.30 


0.5896 


3.50 


7.012 


5.70 


23.74 


7.90 


53.67 


10.10 


99.20 


1.35 


0.6480 


3.55 


7.266 


5.75 


24.26 


7.95 


54.53 


10.15 


100.43 


1.40 


0.7096 


3.60 


7.524 


5.80 


24.79 


8.00 


55.39 


10.20 


101.67 


1.45 


0.7747 


3.65 


7.788 


'5.85 


25.33 


8.05 


56.26 


10.25 


102.92 


1.50 


0.8432 


3.70 


8.058 


5.90 


25.87 


8.10 


57.14 


10.30 


104.18 


1.55 


0.9153 


3.75 


8.332 


5.95 


26.42 


8.15 


58.03 


10.35 


105.45 


1.60 


0.9909 


3.80 


8.613 


6.00 


26.98 


8.20 


58.92 


10.40 


106.73 


1.65 


1.0700 


3.85 


8.899 


6.05 


27.55 


8.25 


59.82 


10.45 


108.02 


1.70 


1.1530 


3.90 


9.191 


6.10 


28.12 


8.30 


60.73 


10.50 


109.31 


1.75 


1.2400 


3.95 


9.489 


6.15 


28.70 


8.35 


61.65 


10.55 


110.62 


1.80 


1.3300 


4.00 


9.792 


6.20 


29.28 


8.40 


62.58 


10.60 


111.94 


1.85 


1.4240 


4.05 


10.100 


6.25 


29.88 


8.45 


63.51 


10.65 


113.26 


1.90 


1.5220 


4.10 


10.410 


6.30 


30.48 


8.50 


64.45 


10.70 


114.60 


1.95 


1.6250 


4.15 


10.730 


6.35 


31.09 


8.55 


65.41 


10.75 


115.94 


2.00 


1.7310 


4.20 


11.060 


6.40 


31,71 


8.60 


66.37 


10.80 


117.29 


2.05 


1.8410 


4.25 


11.390 


6.45 


32.33 


8.65 


67.34 


10.85 


118.65 


2.10 


1.9550 


4.30 


11.730 


6.50 


32.96 


8.70 


68.32 


10.90 


120.02 


2.15 


2.0740 


4.35 


12.070 


6.55 


33.60 


8.75 


69.30 


10.95 


121.41 


2.20 


2.1960 


4.40 


12.420 


6.60 


34.24 


8.80 


70.30 


11.00 


122.81 


2.25 


2.3230 


4.45 


12.780 


6.65 


34.89 


8.85 


71.30 


11.05 


124.21 


2.30 


2.4550 


4.50 


13. 140 


6.70 


35.56 


8.90 


72.31 


11.10 


125.61 


2.35 


2.5900 


4.55 


13.510 


6.75 


36.23 


8.95 


73.33 


11.15 


127.03 


2.40 


2.7300 


4.60 


13.890 


6.80 


36.89 


9.00 


74.36 


11.20 


128.45 


2.45 


2.8750 


4.65 


14.270 


6.85 


37.58 


9.05 


75.40 


11.25 


129.90 


2.50 


3.0240 


4.70 


14.650 


6.90 


38.27 


9.10 


76.44 


11.30 


131.35 


2.55 


3.1770 


4.75 


15.040 


6.95 


38.96 


9.15 


77.49 


11.35 


132.81 


2.60 


3.3350 


4.80 


15.440 


7.00 


39.67 


9.20 


78.55 


11.40 


134.27 


2.65 


3.4980 


4.85 


15.850 


7.05 


40.38 


9.25 


79.63 


11.45 


135,75 


2.70 


3.6660 


4.90 


16.260 


7.10 


41.10 


9.30 


80.71 


11.50 


137.23 


2. 75 


3.8380 


4.95 


16.680 


7.15 


41.83 


9.35 


81.80 


11.55 


138.73 


2.80 


4.0140 


5.00 


17.110 


7.20 


42.56 


9.40 


82.90 


11.60 


140.23 


2.85 


4.1960 


5.05 


17.540 


7.25 


43.30 


9.45 


84.01 


11.65 


141.75 


2.90 


4.3820 


5.10 


17.970 


7.30 


44.06 


9.50 


85.12 


11.70 


143.28 


2.95 


4.5740 


5.15 


18.420 


7.35 


44.82 


9.55 


86.24 


11.75 


144.82 


3.00 


4.7700 


5.20 


18.870 


7.40 


45.58 


9.60 


87.37 


11.80 


146.36 


3.05 


4.9710 


5.25 


19.320 


7.45 


46.36 


9.65 


88.52 


11.85 


147.91 


3.10 


5.1780 


5.30 


19.790 


7.50 


47.14 


9.70 


89.67 


11.90 


149.48 


3.15 


5.3880 


5.35 


20.260 


7.55 


47.92 


9.75 


90.83 


11.95 


151.05 


3.20 


5.6050 


5.40 


20.730 


7.60 


48. 72 


9.80 


92.00 


12.00 


152.64 



1 cubic foot contains 7.48 U. S. gallons ; 1 U. S. gallon weighs 8.34 pounds. 



80 



PLACER MIXING. 



in length from a few inches to several feet. The dis- 
charge may be through 1-inch, 1^- 
inch, 2-inch, or 3-inch planks with 
square edges. The bottom of the 
opening may be either flush with the 
bottom of the box or raised above it. 
The head may denote the distance 
above the center of the aperture or 
above its top, and varies from 4^- inches 
to 12 inches above the center of the 
aperture (see Fig. 15). An aperture 
12 inches high by 12 J inches wide, 
through a 1^-inch plank, with a head of G inches above the 
top of the opening, gives a discharge of 200 miner's inches. 




fig. 15. 



CHAPTER XII. 

WATER SUPPLY— DITCHES AND FLUMES. 

Thousands of miles of ditches have been made in the 
placer-mining districts of this country. On account of the 
rocky character of the country in such districts, steep grades 
are necessary, and high trestles with flumes, and wrought- 
iron and wooden pipes were built for carrying water across 
canyons and ravines. In constructing ditches, the following 
rules should be observed (Bowie) : 

1. The source of supply should be at sufficient elevation 
to cover the greatest range of mining ground at the smallest 
expense, great hydrostatic pressure being desirable. 

2. An abundant and permanent supply of water should 
be assured during the summer months. 

3. The snow-line should be avoided, and the ditch in 
snow regions located so as to have a southern exposure. 

4. All the watercourses on the line of ditch should be 
secured, their supply counteracting the loss by evaporation, 
leakage, and absorption. 

5. At proper intervals waste-gates should be arranged to 
discharge the water without danger to the ditch. 

6. Ditches are preferable to flumes. 

DITCHES. 

SURVEYING A DITCH LINE. 

Careful barometrical observations should be made to 
approximately determine the elevations, not only of the 
termini, but of intermediate points, from which surveying 
parties can start on the subsequent location of the line. 



82 PLACER MINING. 

These points established, the line is surveyed and started. 
In leveling, turning points should be made on grade, the 
stations numbered and staked, and the pegs driven to grade. 
Every four or five stations the rodman calls off the reading, 
which is checked from the notes of the instrument man. 
Stations may be from 50 to 100 feet apart. Bench-marks 
should be placed every half mile. All details of tunnels, 
cuts, and depressions requiring fluming or piping should be 
worked out in full ; a hand-level can be used for this purpose. 
Complete notes should be made regarding the ground along 
the center line. 

The size of a ditch is regulated by its requirements. The 
smallest section for any given discharge is when the "hy- 
draulic depth" is one-half of the actual depth. The 
hydraulic depth is the quotient obtained by dividing the 
area of the cross-section of the stream at any point by the 
wetted perimeter at that point. Trapezoidal and rectan- 
gular forms are adopted for ditches and flumes, respectively. 
The resistance due to friction in the latter form is smallest 
when the width is twice the height. Half a regular hexagon 
is a common form for ditches. In a mountainous country, 
with rocky soil, narrow and deep ditches with steep grades 
are adopted in preference to wider ditches with gentler 

.gg slopes, as they are cheaper 



"""^^^P to excavate and repair. 

,,-- ' imMMw Ditches with grades of 16 

--''' ^^^^^ to ^ ^ eet P er m ^ e are 

^/-r^ ^)^=^&-———^/ , quite common. Before 

^g plMi flijjf commencing work, the line 

$^mSmg^"%> 7 must be cleared of trees 

^B* an d brush; on the flume 

FlG - 16 - line, the brush for at least 

10 feet on each side is burned off. On a hillside, the lines 



PLACER MINING. 



83 



should be graded off so that the ditch may have walls of 
solid, untouched ground, and not made banks. Banks 
should be at least 3 feet wide on top. The slope of large 
ditches for mountain regions is usually 60 degrees for the 
upper and 50 degrees for the lower bank, but varies with the 
nature of the ground. The cost of digging is estimated at 
so much per cubic yard. The annual expense of running 
and maintaining large ditches averages about $400 per mile. 
The North Bloomfield ditch, shown in section in Fig. 1G, is 
55 miles long, 8. Go feet wide on top, 5 feet wide at the 
bottom, and 3^ feet deep; cost, $4GG,707. Its grade is 
16 feet per mile; discharge, 3,200 miner's inches. 

FLUMES. 

Flumes are to be avoided if possible, being liable to decay 
and a continual source of expense. Instances occur, how- 
ever, necessitating them, as where water must be carried 
along the face of vertical cliffs. Flumes usually have a 
slope of from 25 to 35 feet per mile, 
and are consequently proportion- 
ately smaller than ditches. They 
are usually made of seasoned pine 
planks 1^- to 2 inches thick, 12 to 24 
inches wide, and 12 to 1G feet long. 
The edge joints are battened on 
the inside with pine strips 3 to 4 
inches wide and \ inch thick. The 
structure is reenforced every 4 feet 
by a framing consisting of a sill, cap, 
and two posts. A flume 4 feet wide 
by 3 feet high requires 4-in. X 5-in. 
posts and caps and 4-in. X 6-in. sills, 
with 8-in. X 10 in. stringers. The posts are set into the sills 
with a gain of 1^ inches and not mortised. Sills should 




84 PLACER MINING. 

extend 1*2 to *2(> inches beyond the posts, which should be 
braced. Flumes should be built on solid beds or rigid 
trestles, as in Fig. 17. In carrying a flume around a hillside, 
the bed should be graded out and the flume placed close 
into the bank, to avoid danger from snowslides, etc. 
Curves should be laid with care, to ensure the maximum 
flow of water. The boxes must be cut in two, three, or 
four parts, necessitating more sills, posts, and caps. For 
good curving, the side planks are sawed partially through 
in places, so as to bend easily. To distribute water equally 
over an entire flume and prevent slack water, irregular 
curves, and splashing, the outer side of the flume is raised 
in accordance with the degree of curve and grade. Waste- 
gates should be placed every half mile. In the snow belt, 
flumes are covered with sheds in places exposed to* snow- 
slides. Placing the flume close into the bank lessens the 
danger of freezing. If anchor ice forms on the bottom, the 
water should be turned out. Snow can be gotten rid of in 
the same way. 

DETAILS OF CONSTRUCTION. 

The bed being prepared, the stringers are laid and the 
sills placed upon them 4 feet apart. Bottom planks are 
nailed to the sills, the end joints being carefully fitted. The 
side planks are nailed to the bottom planks and posts, which 
are set in gains in the sills, an occasional cap being placed 
on the posts to hold the flume in shape. Sixteen and twenty- 
penny nails are used. The joints are then battened. Each 
box, when completed, is set on grade and wedged. 

Where a flume connects w T ith a ditch, the posts, for a 
distance of several boxes back, are lengthened, to permit 
the introduction of an additional plank on each side. The 
end boxes of the flume are flared, to permit a free entrance 
and discharge of water. At the junction with the ditch or 



PLACER MINING. 



85 



in passing through a bank of earth, an outer siding is nailed 
to the posts to protect the flume. Exaet sizes of lumber 
should be prepared at the mills, so that the flume can be 
rapidly constructed. Enough water is turned into the flume 
as the work progresses to float down the timber. The flume 
may in places be trestled with supports every 8 to 12 feet. 
The life of a flume will not exceed 20 years at most, and 
generally 10 years. 

BRACKET FLUMES. 

Flumes are frequently carried along precipitous canyons 
and cliffs on brackets fastened to the face of the cliff. In 




Fig. 18. 

Butte County, California, a line of ditch is run 200 yards 
up the canyon along a perpendicular wall of basalt. For a 
distance of nearly 500 feet the flume is carried on brackets 
along the face of the cliff, "118 feet above the bed of the 
ravine at its deepest point, and 232 feet below the top. The 
method of hanging is shown in Fig. 18. The brackets are 
made of 30-pound T rails bent into the form of an t L; the 
longer arm — 10 feet long — on which the bed of the flume 



86 PLACER MINING. 

rests, is placed horizontally, having its end supported in a 
hole drilled in the rock. The short arm — 2 feet long — stands 
vertically, and has in its upper end an eye into which is 
hooked one end of a f-inch round iron rod, connecting to a 
ring bolt soldered into a hole drilled in the face of the cliff. 
Brackets are set 8 feet apart and tested to stand a weight of 
14J- tons. The flume is 4 feet wide and 3 feet deep, with a 
capacity of 3,000 miner's inches. The figure shows a 
trestle 86 feet high. Along the line of the ditch is a 
trestle 1,080 feet long and 80 feet high. Another has. been 
built 136 feet high. The 'total length of ditch and flume is 



CHAPTER XIII.. 

WATER SUPPLY— PIPES AND NOZZLES. 

WOODEX PIPES. 

For moderate heads, wooden-stave pipes are coming into 
use. They are practicable for any desired head, but are only 
economical to the point where the pressure necessitates such 
close banding that the cost exceeds that of iron or steel pipes 
of the same length. If kept full of water, the staves will last 
indefinitely, and the bands may be protected from rust by a 
coating of asphalt or other mineral paint. The amount of 
iron in the bands for each foot of pipe is the same as that in 
a foot of sheet-iron pipe of the same diameter, calculated to 
withstand the same head of pressure, with a considerable 
margin of safety. 

IRON PIPES. 

Wrought-iron or steel pipes are used exclusively for very 
high heads. For lower heads, either wood or iron may be 
used, the selection between them being a matter of location 
and cost. Pipes are used as water conduits, replacing ditches 
and flumes; as supply or feed pipes, conveying water from 
the pressure boxes to the claim; and as distributing pipes, 
taking water from the distributors or gates at the end of the 
supply pipe and delivering it to the discharge pipe or nozzle, 
which is usually made of sheet iron. Pipes used for convey- 
ing water across depressions are called inverted siphons. The 
thickness of metal for iron pipes is determined by the pres- 
sure of the water and the diameter of the pipe. Pipe once 
put together soon becomes water-tight from the foreign 
matter in the water. This result may be hastened by throw- 
ing in a few bags of sawdust. Pipes thus prepared will 



88 



PLACER MINING. 



remain tight when subjected to a pressure of over £00 
pounds per square inch. The Texas pipe, Nevada County, 
California, is an inverted siphon, 4,438.7 feet long and 17 
inches in diameter, of riveted sheet iron. Its inlet is 304 
feet above the outlet, and with full head its discharge is 
1,200 miner's inches. The maximum head is 770 feet, 
equivalent to a pressure of 334 pounds per square inch. 

JOINTS. 

Pipes in general are 11, 15, 22, 30, and 40 inches in diam- 
eter, of riveted sheet iron or steel, Nos. 8, 10, 12, 14, or 10 

(Birmingham gauge), 
made in sections of 30 
to 30 inches, and riveted 
into lengths of 20 to 30 
feet. The latter are put 
together stove-pipe 
fashion, neither rivets, 
wire, nor other contri- 
vances being necessary. 
Where there is great 
pressure, iron collars or 
lead joints are used. 

Fig. 19 (a) shows a 
style of joint which is 
frequently used. / is a 
wrought-iron collar 5 inches wide, yV inch thicker than the 
pipe-iron and with a play of § inch between the inside 
of the collar and the outside of the pipe; / is the 
lead, which is run in and calked tight from both sides ; 
n is a nipple of No. 9 iron, inches in width, riveted 
in one end of each section by f-inch rivets. Fig. 19 (b) 
shows the method of tightening leaky joints. a shows 
the clamp and its method of application for forcing back the 




PLACER MINING. 



89 



lead which has worked out by the expansion and contraction 
of the pipe. This is shown both in perspective and cross- 
section. The clamp /; is used to keep the lead in place after 
it has been forced back by the clamp a. The two lower 
views of this clamp show the side and end elevations. Fig. 
20 shows the elbow 
used in making 
short curves, a, a 
are angle irons 
riveted to the elbow FlG - 20 - 

on the outside of the curve and connected by iron straps 
with the corresponding angle irons in the pipe, as shown. 




AIR VALVES ; BLOW-OFFS. 

To allow the escape of air from the pipe while filling, and 

also, in case of a break, to 
prevent the formation of 
a vacuum and the collapse 
of the pipe, blow-offs or air 
valves are provided. The 
simplest form is a loaded 
flap valve of leather on 
the inside of the pipe, 
arranged to cover an 
opening 1 inch to 4 
inches in diameter. 
Another simple auto- 
matic valve is shown in 
Fig. 21. This sinks and 
opens when the water 
leaves it, and shuts 
w hen the water rises 




Fig. 21. 



to it. Fig. 22 shows a form of blow-off valve used 



in 



90 



PLACER MINING. 



low places along the pipe line. Fig. 




23 shows another auto- 
matic water-tight 
vacuum valve which 
is used at the high 
points on the line. 
The valve on the 
right is kept closed 
while the pipe is 
full, being opened 
occasionally to blow 
off air which may 
accumulate. The 
FlG - 22 - main valveisopened 

and the pressure of the water keeps the automatic 

valve closed. In event of a a 

. . . < ~. 

break in the pipe at a point , Q_ 

beyond this valve, the pres- 
sure on the inside of the pipe 
is released, the automatic 
valve falls and admits the air, 
preventing a vacuum. On 
refilling the pipe, this valve 
being open, allows the air to 
escape, closing only when the 
water reaches it. 

LAYING PIPES. 

To preserve the pipe, it 
should be laid in a trench and 
covered with earth to a depth 
of at least a foot. Wooden pipes fig. 23. 

should be painted on the outside with the same mixture that 
is used for covering the bands. Iron pipes should be coated 
inside and out with asphalt or coal tar. Such pipes, well 




PLACER MINING. 91 

coated, are still in good condition after 15 years of service. 
The following mixtures are found to give the best results: 

Crude asphalt *28 per cent, 

Coal tar (free from oily matter). .. 72 per cent. 

Or, Refined asphalt 16.5 per cent. 

Coal tar (free from oily matter)... 83. 5 per cent. 
To prepare these, asphalt in small pieces and coal tar are 
heated to about 400° F. and well stirred. The pipe is dried 
and immersed in the mixture, where it remains until it 
acquires the same temperature as the bath. When coated 
it is removed and placed on trestles, to drip and dry in the 
sun and air. For convenience of immersion, wrought-iron 
troughs 30 feet long by 3 feet wide and 2 feet deep are used. 
Xo. 14 iron requires 7 minutes' immersion; Xo. 6, 12 to 15 
minutes'. 

FILLING PIPES. 

Pipes should be filled in such a manner as to prevent, as 
far as possible, the admission of air, which will be drawn 
into the pipes along with the water in surprising quantities, 
unless considerable care is taken. The best plan is to put a 
gate in the pipe be- 
low the intake, and 
thus regulate the 
flow, maintaining a 
steady pressure. A 
common form of pen- 
stock or sand box for ^'*&^^^U§^^. 
intakes is shown in fig. 24. 

Fig. 24. A grating of bars should be provided to catch all 
drift. The water at the intake of the pipe should be kept 
quiet and sufficiently deep to prevent any air from being 
carried into the pipe. For this purpose the box is some- 
times divided into compartments, one of which receives the 




92 



PLACER MINING. 



water and discharges it quietly into the second through 
lateral openings. There should be no difference between 
the water supply and the discharge. Some pressure boxes 
are arranged for two pipes. 



SUPPLY OR FEED PIPES. 

The water is conveyed in iron feed-pipes from the pres- 
sure boxes to the claim, and distributed to the discharge 
pipes by means of iron gates. The supply pipe is funnel 

shaped where it connects 
with the pressure box, and 
from there on it is usually 
of uniform diameter to the 
gate or discharge nozzle. 
Where 22 to 30-inch pipes 
are used, lighter iron than 
No. 14 B. G. is not advi- 
sable. The main supply 
pipe should descend in the 
most convenient and direct 
line into the diggings, 
avoiding angles, rises, and 
depressions. Air valves 
should be arranged at 
proper distances to allow 
the escape of air when filling the pipe, and prevent collapse. 
The pipe is braced and weighted at all angles. In filling the 
supply pipe, the water should be turned on gradually. Leak- 
age in slip joints can be stopped with sawdust. Wherever 
a junction is to be made with another line, or the stream 
divided, the present practice is to fork the main pipe, cast- 
iron gates being placed in each branch. Fig. 25 shows the 
form of gate generally used.. 





PLACER MINING. 93 

EVOLUTION OF THE GIANT. 

We have mentioned how hydraulicking began with the use 
of a rude hose to break down the banks of debris, and so dis- 
pense with pick and shovel. 

GOOSE-NECK. 

The first improvement on this primitive device was a 
flexible iron joint formed by two elbows, one above the 
other, with a coupling joint between them, shown in (#), 
Fig. 26. These elbows were called "goose-necks." They 
were defective in design. The pressure of water caused the 
joints to move hard, and when the pipe was turned it would 
"buck" or fly back, endangering the life and limbs of the 
operator. 

GLOBE MONITOR. 

The goose-neck was succeeded by the "Craig Globe 
Monitor," which is shown in(#), Fig. 26. This was a simple 
ball-and-socket arrangement, but was very difficult of 
manipulation. 

HYDRAULIC CHIEF. 

The invention of the " Hydraulic Chief," by F, H. Fisher, 
was the next step. The machine is shown in (V), Fig. 26. 
The main improvements consisted of two elbows, placed in 
reversed position when in right line, connected by a ring in 
which there were anti-friction rolls. The ring was bolted 
to a flange in the lower elbow, but allowed the upper a free 
horizontal movement, while the vertical motion was obtained 
by means of a ball-and-socket joint in the outlet of the top 
elbow. The interior was unobstructed by bolt or fasten- 
ings, and the man at the pipe could operate it by means of 
a lever, without personal danger. Vanes, or rifles, were 
inserted in the discharge pipe to prevent the rotary move- 
ment of the water caused by the elbows, and to force it to 



94 



PLACER MINING. 



issue in a solid stream. These machines soon became 
leaky. 

DICTATOR. 

The " Hoskins Dictator," the next step of the series, was 
a one-jointed machine with an elastic packing in the joint, 
instead of two metal faces. The joint worked up and down 
on pivots, and in rotating it the wheels ran around against 
the flange. 

LITTLE GIAIVT. 

The "Little Giant," a subsequent invention of Mr. 
Hoskins, on account of its simplicity and durability, super- 








FlG. 26. 



seded all previous machines. (See (d), Fig. 26.) It is a two- 



PLACER MINING. 95 

jointed machine, portable and easily handled, having a 
knuckle joint and lateral movement. The Giants have 
rifles, and nozzles from 4 to 9 inches in diameter, 5£ to 7-inch 
nozzles being commonly used. To keep Giants from buck- 
ing, they must be firmly bolted to a heavy piece of timber 
securely braced against gravel or rock. The machine and 
adjacent length of pipe must also be weighted to the 
ground. The bearings should be lubricated with tallow or 
axle grease. 

HYDRAULIC GIANT. 

The " Hydraulic Giant" (see(V), Fig. 26) is a modification of 
the Little Giant. The " Monitor," with a deflecting nozzle, 
invented by H. C. Perkins, is shown in (/), Fig. 26. The 
deflecting nozzle b permits the direction of the stream at any 
desired angle. When the lever c is in the rest d, the 
deflecting nozzle b, being of larger diameter than the nozzle, 
allows the stream of water from the nozzle to pass 
through without obstruction. To move the pipe, the levers- 
is taken from the rest and thrust in the direction in which 
it is desired to throw the stream. Any movement of the 
lever c, either to the right or left or up or down, throws the 
end of the nozzle b into the stream of water. The force of 
the water striking b causes the entire machine to swing 
around in the desired direction. Hoskins' deflecting nozzle 
is of cast iron, the same size as the main nozzle, to which 
it is attached by a packed universal joint. The operation 
is similar to that of the Monitor deflector. There is 
the disadvantage of a constant interference with the 
stream of water, and this nozzle is, therefore, somewhat 
dangerous. 



CHAPTER XIV. 




Fig. 27 



PLACER MINING PRACTICE— DEVELOPMENT 
OF GOLD-WASHING APPARATUS. 

THE PAN. 

The gold miner's pan, shown in Fig. 27, is pressed from a 
single sheet of Russia iron. It is usually about 12 inches 
in diameter at the bottom and 3 to 4 
inches deep, the sides being inclined at 
an angle of 30 degrees from the hori- 
zontal and turned over a wire around 
the edge to strengthen the rim. It is 
used in prospecting, cleaning gold-bearing sand, collecting 
amalgam in the sluices, and throughout the business gener- 
ally. Its manipulation requires skill and practice. A 
quantity of the dirt to 
be washed is placed in 
the pan, occupying about 
two-thirds of its capa- 
city; the pan with its 
contents is immersed 
in water and the mass 
stirred, so that every 
particle m a y become 
soaked. When the dirt 
is soaked, the pan is 
taken in both hands, one 
on each side, and with- 
out allowing it to entire- FlG - 28 - 
ly emerge from the water it is suspended in the hands, not 




PLACER MINING. 97 

quite level, but tipping slightly away from the operator. In 
this position it is shaken so as to allow the water to disen- 
gage all the light, earthy particles and carry them away. 
(See Fig. 28.) This done, there will remain varying pro- 
portions of gold dust, heavy sand, lumps of clay, and 
gravel stones; these last are thrown out. A turn of 
the wrist allows the muddy water to escape in driblets 
over the depressed edge of the pan, without exercising 
so much force as to send the lighter portions of the 
gold after it. At last nothing remains in the pan but 
gold dust and heavy black sand and earthy matter. 
By the final careful working, with plenty of clear water, 
the earthy matter can be completely removed, but the 
heavy iron sand can not be gotten rid of by any method 
based upon its specific gravity as related to that of gold. 
If this iron sand be magnetic, the grains can be removed 
by a magnet. If there are fine particles of pyrites in 
the pan, they can generally be distinguished from gold by 
their lighter color, the gold being commonly a rich orange 
color. 

THE BA/TEA. 

The batea is a modification of the pan, used principally in 
parts of Mexico and South America where water is scarce. 
It is a shallow, conical bowl, turned out of a single piece of 
hard wood, and is about 20 inches in diameter by 2|- inches 
deep in the center. It is, on the whole, a better instrument 
than the pan for gold washing, the wood surface facilitating 
the concentration of the gold. 

PUDDLING BOX. 

The puddling box is a wooden box about 6 feet square by 
18 inches deep, arranged with plugs for discharging the 
contents. The box is filled with water and gold-bearing 



08 



PLACER MINING. 




Fig. 29. 



clay'. By continuous stirring with a rake, the clay is 
broken up in the water and run off. The concentrated 
material in the bottom is subsequently washed in a pan or 
rocker. 

THE ROCKER. 

The rocker is a box about 40 inches long by 16 inches 
wide and 1 foot high, with one or two riffles across the 

bottom, and set on rockers, as 
shown in Fig. 29. On the upper 
end is a removable hopper 18 to 
20 inches square and 4 inches 
deep, with an iron bottom per- 
forated with one-half-inch holes. 
Beneath the hopper, below the perforated plate, there is a 
light frame placed on an incline from front to back, upon 
which a canvas or carpet apron is stretched. To use the 
rocker, material is thrown into the hopper and water is 
poured on with a dipper held in one hand, while with the 
other hand the cradle is kept rocking. The water washes 
the finer stuff through the bottom of the hopper, and the 
gold or amalgam is either caught on the apron or collects in 
the bottom of the rocker, while the sand or lighter material 
in the hopper is thrown aside. Rockers were extensively 
used in placer mining before the introduction of sluicing. 
Now they are employed in cleaning up placer claims and 
quartz mills and for collecting finely divided particles of 
amalgam and quicksilver. 

THE TOM. 

The "Tom " is a rough trough about 12 feet long, 15 to 
20 inches wide at the upper end and 30 inches wide at the 
lower, and 8 inches deep. It is set on timbers or stones, with 
an incline of about 1 inch per foot. A sheet-iron plate or 
riddle, perforated with one-half-inch holes, fills the lower 



PLACER MINING. 



00 



end of the trough, which is beveled on the lower side, as 
shown in Fig. 30. The material coming from the sluice, on 
striking the riddle, is sorted, the fine dirt and water passing 
through the holes, and the coarse stuff being shoveled off. 
Under the riddle is a shallow trough with riffles, set on an 
incline, into which the finer gravel passes. The discharge 
of the water through the plate, With the occasional aid of 
the shovel, keeps the sand from packing and allows the gold 
to settle. 

The Tom succeeded the cradle rocker. The old-fashioned 
1 k Long Tom" was 14 feet long ; it was followed by the ' ' Vic- 
toria," "Jenny Lind," or 
"Broad Tom," 6 or 7 feet I 
long, 12 inches wide at the 
upper end and 3 feet at the 
lower. The Tom consists 
of two distinct troughs or 
boxes placed one above the 
other. (See Fig. 30.) A fig. 30. 

stream of water flows in through the spout d, just over the 
place where the dirt is introduced into the upper box, or 
Tom proper, a. The dirt is thrown in by one man, while 
the second constantly stirs it about with a square-mouthed 
shovel or a fork with blunt tines, pitching out the heavy 
boulders and tossing back undecomposed lumps of clay 
against the current. To save wear and tear, the floor of the 
Tom is lined with -J-inch sheet iron. The lower part of the 
Tom is cut off obliquely, so that the mouth may be stopped 
by a sheet of perforated iron, such as forms the bottom of 
the cradle riddle already described. The apparatus being 
placed on an incline, material gravitates with the water 
toward the sloping grating at the mouth, through which 
everything passes save the large stones, which gather on the 




100 



PLACER MINING. 



grating and are removed as often as necessary. Beneath 
this grating stands the riffle box b, into which fine material, 
including gold, descends. The riffle boxes, of rough plank, 
are also placed on an incline, just enough so that the water 
passing over them will allow of the bottom becoming and 
remaining covered with a thin coating of fine mud. In this 
way the gold and a few of the heavier materials find their 
way to the bottom and rest there by aid of the riffle bars. 
Sometimes a little mercury is put behind the riffles to assist 
in retaining the gold, and the riffle box is supplemented by 
a series of blankets for catching very fine gold. Toms are 




Fig. 31. 



cleaned up periodically, and the gold and amalgam washed 
out with cradles. They are applicable only to workings 
where the gold is coarse, as they lose considerable of the fine 
gold. Two to four men work at one Tom. Fig. 31 shows 
a Broad Tom in operation. 



PLACER MINING. 101 

SLUICES. 

Sluices were introduced soon after the Tom. A sluice 
consists of an inclined channel, through which flows a stream 
of water, breaking up the earth which is thrown into it, 
carrying away the light barren matter, and leaving the gold 
and heavy minerals. There are box sluices and ground 
sluices, the former being raised above the surface, necessi- 
tating the lifting of the pay dirt into them ; the latter are sunk 
below the surface. Box sluices, or board sluicing, are long 
wooden troughs or series of troughs. They vary in length 
from fifty to several hundred feet, and are never less than 1 
foot, and seldom more than 5 feet, wide. The usual width 
is 16 to 18 inches, and the height of the sides 8 inches to 2 
feet. The sluice is made in sections from 12 to 14 feet long, 
of 1^-inch rough plank, the bottom boards sawed tapering, 
so that the narrow end of one box telescopes into the broad 
end of the next throughout the whole series, and beyond this 
no nailing or fixing is required. This line of trough rests on 
trestles, with usually a uniform grade throughout the whole 
series. The amount of descent, or grade, is from 8 inches 
to 18 inches in 12 feet. A fall of 8 inches in 12 feet is an 
"8-inch grade," etc. It is important that the sluice should 
be conveniently near the level of the ground at the point 
where the pay dirt is introduced; this has an influence on. 
the grade, as has also the character of the pay dirt and the 
length of the sluice. The steeper the grade, the quicker the 
dirt is washed away by the force of the water; the tougher 
the dirt, the steeper must be the grade, as tough clay natu- 
rally does not break up so quickly in a slow current as in a 
rapid one. In short sluices the grade should be relatively 
light, as there is more danger of the fine gold being lost in a 
short sluice than in a long one. The steeper the grade, the 
more work the sluice can do. As ordinary pay dirt is gen- 
erally completely disintegrated in the first 200 feet of a 



102 



PLACER MINING. 



moderately low-grade sluice, the extra length is useful only for 
catching the gold. Sometimes, therefore, the grade of the 
last part of the sluice is reduced. When the grade of a 
sluice is very low, say 1 in 40 or 50, the gold is easily caught, 
and much of it would rest even upon the smooth floor of the 
sluice; but additional means are, nevertheless, always 
adopted. 

When stones are plentiful in the wash dirt, a small bar 

may be placed across the 
lower end of each trough, 
to prevent the bottom from 
being run bare. It is usual 
to throw out stones as large 
as the two fists by a fork 
fork). The boxes must be 




(sluice 
do 



Fig. 32. 

with several prongs 
watched, that they 
not choke up and send 
the contents over the 
sides. A false bottom 
is used in the sluice to 
catch the gold and save 
wear and tear on the 
floor proper. False bot- 
t o m s are frequently 
made of longitudinal 
riffle bars 6 feet long, 3 
to 7 inches wide, and 2 
to 4 inches thick, two 
sets for each length of 
trough or sluice. Fig. 
32 shows the arrangement 
of the riffle bars in the 
sluice. They are kept 
in place by cross-wedges, 






|-g 

•<* 

1 L^ 



Fig. 33. 



PLACER MINING. 



LOB 



at a distance of 1 to 2 inches apart, and are not nailed, as 
they have to be removed at each cleaning up. Into the 
spaces thus formed, the gold and other heavy bodies will 
fall, always sinking through the lighter particles to the 
bottom. Where there is a great quantity of pebbles and 
boulders, and the pay dirt riffles described are worn away 
rapidly, block riffles are used, which last much longer. In- 
stead of being sawed with the grain of the wood, they are 
cut across the grain, so that the fibers stand upright in the 
sluice-box as in the live tree. They are fixed transversely 
two inches apart, as shown in Fig. 33. Cobblestone and 
squared-stone riffles are also commonly used in such cases. 

DERRICKS. 

Strong derricks are used in hydraulic mining to remove 
heavy boulders. The style most in use at present is a mast 
100 feet high set in a cast-iron box placed on sills, and hav- 




FlG. 34. 



ing a boom 92 feet long. The mast is held in position by 



104 PLACER MINING. 

galvanized-iron wire-rope guys one inch in diameter. A 
whip-block with f-inch steel rope is used for hoisting tackle. 
A 12-foot diameter hurdy-gurdy wheel furnishes the power. 
Stones weighing 10 and 11 tons are handled. The guys are 
held by double capstans, allowing the derrick to be moved 
without dismantling. 

WATER-WHEELS. 

"Hurdy-gurdy," or some other form of "impact" wheels 
moved by a stream or jet of water issuing under pressure 
from a concealed nozzle, and striking open buckets on the 
circumference of the wheel, furnish the power used in oper- 
ating derricks and dynamos about placer mines. The Pel- 
ton wheel, Fig. 34, is the form most commonly used at pres- 
ent. These wheels are always housed. 



CHAPTER XV. 

PLACER MIXING PRACTICE— BLASTING AND 

TUNNELING; SLUICES, UNDERCURRENTS, 

ETC.; TAILINGS AND DUMP. 

BLASTING GRAVEL BANKS. 

Where the deposits are very strongly cemented, blasting is 
necessary before the material can be treated. Blasting in 
placer mining is done on a very large scale. The usual 
method is as follows: The drift is run in from the bottom 
of the deposit a distance proportionate to the height of the 
bank (as a general rule not over three-fourths of the height 
for high banks), and the character of the ground to be moved. 
From the end of this main drift, the cross drift is carried each 
way, forming a T. The cross drifts are charged with kegs 
of powder, the main drift tamped by tilling it up solid with 
dirt and rock, and the powder is exploded by a time fuse, or 
an electric battery. When the ground is very heavy, several 
cross drifts may be used. Just sufficient powder is used to 
thoroughly shatter the ground. 

METHOD OF BLASTING. 

After the loose top gravel has been washed off, the bot- 
tom cement is blasted, the object of blasting being to com- 
pletely loosen the material. Hard cement requires quick 
powder, like Judson powder. In softer cement, black pow- 
der, as a lifter, is all that is required. In very high banks, 
it is best to blow out the bottom rather than to attempt to 
raise the superincumbent mass. The charge should then be 
placed so that the line of least resistance is horizontal. 

In banks 50 to 150 feet high, of ordinary cement gravel, 



106 PLACER MIXING. 

the following method is recommended by Bowie: The 
main drift should be run in a distance of two-thirds the 
height of the bank to be blasted. The cross drifts from the 
end of the main drift should be run parallel with the face of 
the bank, and their lengths determined by the extent of the 
ground to be moved. A single T is usually all that is neces- 
sary. The powder required is from 10 to 20 pounds to 1,000 
cubic feet of ground to be loosened. 

In firing by electricity great care should be taken of 
wires while tamping, and where dynamite-exploders with 

platinum wires are used 

r ~ v— _ _ ^ — & '1^£E: — s_~ ' tne compound circuit is 

^—~---^ j^~*w«a£» desirable. In charging 

\J v the drifts, the powder, in 

1 f boxes or kegs, is piled in 

'H v ; rows. Two wires a a and 

% r d d (Fig. 35) run along 



**' m the middle row, the tops 

of the boxes on which the 

wires rest being removed. The exploders b, b, b are inserted 

in giant cartridges and placed on top of the paper covering 

the powder. 

TAMPING. 

Great care should be used to prevent the blowing out of 
the tamping. It is advisable when firing blasts by fuse to 
tamp nearly the entire main drift. The gravel extracted 
from the drifts is used for this purpose, and should be fairly 
dry and free from large stones. The tamping should 
be firmly rammed with wooden mauls, so that it will not 
settle. In order to prevent misfires, it is customary to 
lay two or three lines of fuse, which are simultaneously 
ignited. 



PLACER MINING. 107 

TUNNELS. 

Tunnels are run to open gravel claims and also to pro- 
vide proper facilities for removing wash material. A tun- 
nel should be driven well into the channel before connecting 
with the surface. 

SHAFTS. 

Shafts connecting with tunnels are usually vertical, and 
3 feet by 3 feet to 4|- by 9 feet in the clear. It is sometimes 
convenient to have the shaft located at one side and con- 
nected with the tunnel by a short drift. Where the shaft is 
in hard rock no timbering is necessary, but in loose soil the 
shaft should be closely lagged and lined on the inside with 
blocks 6 to 10 inches thick, to within 10 to 30 feet of the 
surface. In long tunnels, a second shaft is advisable as a 
measure of safety. 

LOCATION. 

In locating the mouth of a tunnel, a point should be se- 
lected from which the sluices running in the most practic- 
able line with a given grade can bottom the maximum ex- 
tent of the pay channel at the least expense. 

SLUICES. 

The name "sluice" was originally applied to the miner's 
sluice-box. Subsequently several sluice-boxes were joined 
together for permanent use, and "sluice" and "flume" be- 
came synonymous. For the purpose of distinction, the 
name ' ' sluice" is here applied to drifts, cuts, or boxes through 
which the gravel is washed, while "flume" is used solely in 
reference to open wooden water conduits. 

Sluices should be set in straight lines, and when curves 
occur the outer side of the box should be slightly raised, to 
cause a more even distribution of the material over the 
riffles. Sluices with drops are effective for saving gold. 



108 PLACER MINING. 

As the facility with which gravel can be moved depends 
upon the inclination given to the sluice, grade is very im- 
portant. Where the wash is coarse and cemented and there 
is much pipe-clay, a heavy grade is necessary; strongly 
cemented gravel needs drops to break it up. A common 
grade is 6 inches to a box 12 feet long, approximately a 
4 per cent, grade. If too much water is used, the sand 
packs the riffles. The best results are obtained on light 
grades, with shallow streams. Coarse gravel demands 4 to 
7 per cent, grade and an increase of water. The water in 
the sluice should be 10 to 12 inches deep, covering the 
largest boulders. The size of the sluice depends upon the 
grade, character of gravel, and quantity of water. A sluice 
6 feet wide, 36 inches deep, on a 4 or 5 per cent, grade, 
suffices for running 2,000 to 3,000 inches of water. One 
4 feet wide and 30 inches deep, on a grade of 4 inches to 
16 feet, suffices for 800 to 1,500 inches of water, and on a 
4 per cent, grade it is large enough for 2,000 inches. As to 
length, the line should be sufficiently long to ensure com- 
plete disintegration of the material and allow all the gold 
practicable to settle in the riffles. The longer the sluice the 
greater the amount of gold saved ; hence, the sluice is 
indefinitely extended so long as increased yield exceeds the 
additional expense. 

Sluices 4 feet wide are made of H-inch plank, with sills 
and posts of 4 by 6 inch scantling. The bottom should be 
tight to avoid losing quicksilver, of half-seasoned lumber, 
free from knots, with the joints carefully sawed and grooved 
for the reception of a soft-pine tongue, which is inserted 
between the ends of the planks. Bottom and sides are 
spiked together, with nails 4 inches apart. Sills are placed 
3 to 4-ifiches apart, a 4-foot sluice requiring a sill 7 feet long 
of 4 by 6 inch stuff. Posts are halved into the sills and 



PLACER MINING. 109 

firmly spiked, and every second or third post is supported by 
an angle brace. Bottom planks are secured to the sills 
by heavy spikes. Sluices should be weighted down heavily 
by loading the ends of the sills with stones. Fig. 33 illus- 
trates a good construction. Each box is 6 feet wide, 12 feet 
long, and 32 inches deep' over all. To each box are used : 

8 posts, 1 in. X in. x 3 ft. 2 in. 

4 sills, 1 in. X in. x 8 ft. 

3 bottom planks, 2 in. x 24 in. X 12 ft. 

4 side planks, li- in. x 16 in. x 12 ft. 
2 top rails, 2 in. X 8 in. x 12 ft. 

1G braces, 2 in. X 4 in. X 2 ft. 

This is on the inside of the tunnel. On the outside of the 
tunnel, sills and braces are longer. The nails for the bottom 
are 30 penny, and for the sides 20 penny. The side lining, 
of worn blocks, is 3 inches thick, 18 to 20 inches deep, 
and is set 2^ to 3^ inches above the bottom. The riffle 
strips between blocks are 1^- inches thick by 3 inches wide 
and 5 feet 11 inches long. The blocks are 13 inches deep 
and 20^- inches square. Where stone riffles are used, the 
bottom of the sluice is lined with rough plank. The top 
sluice on one side is for carrying surface water when the 
blocks are being set. It is 13 inches wide and 4 inches deep, 
made of H-inch plank. 

RIFFLES. * 

Riffles are of various forms. In primitive mining, blankets, 
sods, hides with the hair side up, and niches cut in the bed- 
rock were used. Then came longitudinal strips, and finally 
block and rock riffles, which are now universally used. The 
character of the riffle used depends upon the length of the 
sluice, which in turn depends upon the tenacity of the ma- 
terial and the character of the gold, scale gold with large 



110 PLACER MINING. 

amounts of black sand and fine pyrites escaping all riffles 
for long distances. 

BLOCK RIFFLES. 

Block riffles are wooden blocks 8 to 13 inches deep, set on 
end, in rows across the sluice, each row separated by a space 
of 1 to H inches. They are kept in position by riffle strips 
1 to 1-J- inches thick by 2 to 3 inches wide, held between the 
rows by the side lining and secured to the blocks by headless 
nails. Block riffles are also set and held firmly in position 
by soft-pine wedges driven between the blocks and the sides 
of the sluice, the sides or the adjacent faces of the blocks 
being squared. Side lining is necessary in all sluices. For 
handling cemented gravel the sides of the sluice should be 
lined with blocks 3 inches thick to a depth of 18 or 20 inches. 
Square block riffles are the best for saving gold, though sec- 
tions of wood are frequently used just as they are sawn from 
the log. Rocks are the next most economical substitute, but 
sluices set with them require steeper grades and more water. 

The life of a block depends upon the quality of the wood, 
the grade, the character, and quantity of the gravel, and 
the amount of water. The larger the amount of water on 
the same grade in proportion to that of gravel, the less the 
wear and tear on the block. Soft, long-grained wood which 
"brooms up" makes the best riffles. Pitch pine answers 
well. After each run the blocks are turned and replaced in 
the sluice, if not worn down too much. In repaving with 
old blocks, the edge worn down the most is placed up-stream. 
As the blocks do not fill the whole width of the sluice, the 
alternate rows are fitted so as to break joints. 

ROCK RIFFLES. 

Where heavy, strong cement is washed, stone riffles are 
advantageous. As quarried, the rocks are of irregular 
shape and size, and are set in the sluice with a slight tilt 



PLACER MINING. Ill 

down stream. They are cheap and wear well, but have the 
disadvantage i^\ being more awkward and costly to handle, 
requiring a longer time to clean up and repave the sluice. 

A system of riffles, consisting' of a row of blocks alter- 
nating with an equal section of rocks, works well, reducing 
the wear on the blocks, but it is not desirable for riffles 
which have to be frequently cleaned up. Longitudinal 
riffles, made of scantling placed lengthwise in the sluices, 
are sometimes used. Again, in some mines a portion of the 
line may be without a box sluice, the bed-rock being used. 

BRANCH SLUICES. 

Branch sluices may be necessary where a light dump 
requires frequent changes of the tailings discharge, or the 
topography of the claim is such that a single sluice can not 
reach all the pay dirt. 

Care is necessary in turning into or turning out from 
a sluice, lest a gravel bar form either above or below the 
junction. The turn-out sluice is used when the dump room 
is limited; the turn-in sluice, when branch sluices are neces- 
sary to cover the whole pay area, two or more branch 
sluices emptying into one main sluice. 

UNDERCURRENTS. 

Undercurrents are introduced into a sluice line for the 
purpose of saving fine gold. They are broad sluices set on 
a heavy grade below and to one side of the main sluice. 
Where a drop-ofl can be made in the sluice, a "grizzly," 
made up of 1-in. X 4-in. iron bars, 10 to 20 in number, set 
edgewise, 1 inch apart, is let into the bottom of the sluice. 
It is set 1 inch below the sluice pavement, wmich is raised 
as it wears down. If too low, the grizzly is apt to clog. 
Coarse material passes over the grizzly, and, if the topog- 
raphy permits, is dropped and picked up again in sluices at 



112 



PLACER MINING. 



a lower level. The finer stuff passes through the bars into 
a box about 20 inches deep, set at right angles to the main 
line and lined with blocks or stones. From here the material 
passes into the distributing box or chute of the undercurrent, 
as shown in Fig. 36. This chute is lined with cobbles, and 
provided with dividers of wood to evenly distribute the mate- 



Plan 




Fig. 36. 

rial over the surface of the undercurrent. It has a light grade 
and narrows slightly towards the lower end. The undercur- 
rent proper is a shallow wooden box 20 to 50 feet wide and 40 
to 50 feet long, with sides about 16 inches high. It should be 
about eight to ten times the width of the main sluice. The 
bottom is made of H-inch plank, tongued and grooved and 



PLACER MIXING. 113 

set on a grade of 8 to 10 per cent., according to the smooth- 
ness of the riffles employed. It may be paved with cobbles, 
wooden rails shod with strap iron, or small wooden blocks. 
With the smooth riffles a grade of 12 inches in 12 feet is 
plenty, but with blocks the grade should be increased to 
14 inches in 1*2 feet, and with cobbles to 16 inches. The 
tailings from the undercurrent are led back into the main 
sluice. At French Corrall, with a tailing sluice 5 feet wide, 
the yield of the first undercurrent, which was £0 feet in 
width, was '20 per cent, of the total yield of the undercur- 
rents; an addition of 10 feet to the width increased its yield 
2T per cent, of the total, without changing the grizzly in 
the main sluice. 

TAILINGS. 

The refuse from any form of mining, after the extraction 
of the gold, is called " tailings." Placer refuse is also known 
as debris. Tailings from mills consist of pulverized quartz 
or other gangue matter. Refuse from gravel workings is of 
all sorts and sizes of material. The light particles of soil, 
loam, and sand are easily carried forwards by running water, 
while the rocks and boulders, though readily transported 
through the sluices, lodge and distribute themselves when 
discharged therefrom into the creeks and streams, in accord- 
ance with their size, shape, and specific gravity, and for 
their removal time and flood are necessary. 

THE DIMP. 

.One of the requisites for a large placer enterprise is a 
good dumping ground. As thousands of tons of material 
are being treated daily, and only a very small portion of this 
is saved, some place must be provided at a lower level for 
the storage of the waste material. A much larger space is 



114: PLACER MINING. 

necessary for this purpose than was originally occupied by 
the excavated material. The lack of dump room is remedied 
only in exceptional cases by discharging the waste into a 
current or torrent. This may occur where the gold placers 
are on the borders of large, rapid, well-confined streams, 
but in the mountains, where the majority of gold deposits 
occur, the rivers are narrow and shallow. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

PLACER MINING PRACTICE — WASHING OR 

HYDRAL LICKING. 

CHARGING THE SLUICES. 

The tunnel and sluices being finished and everything in 
readiness, water is turned into the pipes. The sluices are 
run for a day in order to pack them ; the water is then shut 
off and a charge of quicksilver is put into the upper 200 or 
300 feet of the sluices and a small quantity distributed along 
the entire line with the exception of the last 400 feet. In a 
6-foot sluice the first charge should be about 3 flasks. The 
undercurrents are charged at the same time, and a little 
quicksilver put into the tail sluice. Quicksilver is added 
daily during the run, in gradually lessening quantities, the 
object being to keep the mercury uncovered and clean at 
the top of the riffles; therefore, the charge is regulated by 
the amount exposed to view. A 24-foot undercurrent re- 
quires 80 to 88 pounds of quicksilver. 

In charging the riffles, the quicksilver should not be 
sprinkled or splashed, as particles of mercury are readily 
carried off by the swift stream, while the very fine portions 
will even float in still water. Top water from mining sluices 
often yields minute particles of quicksilver. 

CAVING BANKS. 

The first work is started near the head of the sluice. As 
the bank recedes, the bed-rock cuts are carried along with 
it and the sluice advanced. In order to cave a bank, two 
streams of water are usually delivered against its base at an 



116 



PLACER MINING. 



angle with each other, as in Fig. 37. This great mass of 
water, discharged against the bank with a force of 150 to 
200 pounds per square inch, rapidly undermines it, the bank 
crumbles away, and the rush of water carries the debris into 




Fig. 37. 

the sluices. If the dirt caves rapidly, one pipe may be used 
for cutting, while with the stream from the other, the fall- 
ing gravel is washed into the ground sluices. The face of 
the bank should be kept square; advantage should be taken 
of such corners as are left, and under all circumstances a 
"horseshoe" form should be avoided. When the cut is 
rapidly pushed ahead and the work not squared, the men at 
the pipes are encircled by high walls, and their lives are in 



PLACER MINING. 117 

danger. Where banks exceed 150 feet in height, the deposit 
should be worked in two benches. When the men at the 
pipe see the bank is about to cave, the water should be im- 
mediately turned away, for if the cave falls on the water in 
the ground cut, a rush of debris follows, and the men at the 
pipe have to run for their lives. Caves are usually made 
towards evening. Locomotive reflectors or bonfires illumi- 
nate the banks at night ; electric lights are also largely used 
around the larger placer mines. The washing should be 
continuous, and no water allowed to run to waste ;" therefore, 
it is desirable to have several faces or openings, so that the 
stream may be diverted from one to the other while cuts are 
being advanced and sluices lengthened. These cuts, or 
ground sluices, are trenches made in bed-rock near the face 
of the bank to collect the water and material and convey 
them to the sluices. Sometimes they are 60 to 70 feet deep. 
As a precaution against theft, where claims are worked 
intermittently, sluices are run full of gravel before closing 
down. 

CLEANING UP. 

The length of a run depends largely upon the wear of the 
pavement. Some claims are cleaned up every 20 days, others 
every two or three months, and a few only once a season. 
All pavements should be cleaned up as soon as they begin 
to wear in grooves. Where a large quantity of gravel is 
washed, it is advisable to clean up the first 1,000 or 2,000 
feet of the sluice about every two weeks. The tail sluices 
are cleaned up only once a. year. Undercurrents should be 
cleaned up whenever quicksilver is found spread over their 
lower riffles, with a tendency to discharge over their ends. 

When it is decided to clean up, the bed-rock and ground 
sluices are washed clean. No material is turned into the 
sluices, clear water alone being run in until the sluices are 



118 PLACER MINING. 

free from dirt. A small quantity of water, in which a man 
can conveniently work, is then turned through the sluice, 
and the blocks are taken out by crowbars, washed clean of 
amalgam, and laid alongside the sluice. This is done in 
sections of 100 feet. One row of blocks is left in the sluice 
between each section; these rows serve as riffles to prevent 
the gold and quicksilver passing down the sluice. After the 
first section of blocks is taken up, the men follow the gravel 
and dirt as it is slowly washed down the sluices and pick up 
the quicksilver and amalgam with iron scoops and deposit it 
in sheet-iron buckets. As each riffle is reached, the amalgam 
and quicksilver are collected, the block riffles removed and 
the residue washed down to the next riffle, and so on down 
the entire line of sluice. When this operation is finished, 
the water is turned off entirely, and workmen go over the 
sluices with small silver spoons, digging the amalgam out of 
nail holes and cracks. After this, the side lagging is over- 
hauled, and the blocks are then replaced. Very long sluices 
are usually lined in the lower portion with heavy rock riffles, 
which can be used for longer periods without cleaning up. 
It is customary, where mines are run night and day, to clean 
up as long a section as possible during the day, and to replace 
the lining and resume washing at night, proceeding thus till 
the whole is cleaned up. 

AMALGAMATION. 

Though heavy gold may be arrested by the various con- 
trivances described, much fine gold would escape in the 
absence of mercury or quicksilver. If this is present, how- 
ever, it instantly seizes and amalgamates any gold coming 
in contact with it. When using zigzag riffles, a vessel con- 
taining quicksilver and pierced by a small hole which allows 
the metal to escape drop by drop is placed near the head of 
the sluice. Trickling down from riffle to riffle, it over- 



PLACER MINING. 119 

takes the gold, absorbs, and retains it, the amalgam thus 
formed being caught in the longitudinal or block riffles 
farther down. In longitudinal riffle sluices, after starting 
the washing, some of the mercury poured in at the head of 
the sluice finds its way down with the current, but the larger 
portion remains in the. upper boxes. Smaller quantities are 
introduced at intervals lower down, the quantity being 
increased in direct proportion to the amount of fine gold 
present. Another plan is to impregnate with mercury the 
pores of the wood forming the riffle bars by driving a piece 
of gas pipe, ground thin at one end, into the wood and fill- 
ing it up with quicksilver. The pressure of the column 
forces a certain amount into the fibers of the wood. This 
catches the gold, and the resulting amalgam needs only to 
be scraped off the surface of the wood. 

A fourth device, for use where there is very much fine 
gold, is the amalgamated copper plate. This usually meas- 
ures 3 feet wide by 6 feet long. Sometimes the stream is 
split and carried over two or three separate plates. The 
plate is placed nearly level and at a considerable distance from 
the head of the sluice, as it is intended to catch only the fine 
float gold, and for this reason, also, a sheet-iron screen, per- 
forated with holes -J- inch by -^ inch, is placed in front of it, 
so that only the finest particles pass over it. It is amalga- 
mated by first cleaning its upper surface with weak nitric 
acid and then applying some mercury, which has been treated 
with dilute nitric acid to form a little nitrate of mercury. 
The current must be slow and shallow, so that every particle 
of gold may come in contact with the face of the plate. A 
freshly amalgamated plate may become coated with a green 
slime of subsalts of copper; this must be carefully scraped 
off and the plate rubbed with fresh mercury. To remove the 
amalgam, the plate is taken up and gently heated, and it 



120 PLACER MINING. 

may then be easily scraped off. The plate is allowed to cool 
and again rubbed with a little mercury. The plate should 
not be less than ^ inch thick. 

AMALGAM KETTLES. 

Amalgam kettles are ordinary sheet-iron buckets or porce- 
lain kettles. In cleaning up they are used as receptacles for 
floating the gold amalgam, which is floated in quicksilver 
to free it from barren substances before straining and 
retorting. 

CLEANING THE AMALGAM. 

The quicksilver and amalgam obtained in cleaning up are 
well stirred in buckets, and the coarse sand, nails, and other 
foreign substances which float to the surface are skimmed 
off. This residue, which retains considerable amalgam, is 
concentrated by working in pans or rockers, and the con- 
centrates are ground in iron mortars with some clean quick- 
silver. Any base material floating to the surface of the bath 
is melted separately to a base bullion ; the remainder is added 
to the fine amalgam. The quicksilver is strained from the 
amalgam through canvas or drilling, and the dry amalgam 
is treated in iron retorts. 

RETORTING. 

When the amount of amalgam to be treated is small, the 
hand retort answers all requirements ; but at large gravel 
mines, stationary cast-iron retorts are used. When large 
quantities of amalgam are retorted and the furnace is left un- 
attended, a retort which is set immediately above the fire is 
apt to become overheated. The weight of the metal inside 
of the retort then causes it to " belly," ruining it completely. 
To prevent this, the retort should be supported at several 
points and arranged with the fire to one side, so that the 
heat may be evenly distributed over it. (See Fig. 38.) 



PLACER MINING. 



121 



Before putting the amalgam into the retort, the latter 
should be coated on the inside with a thin sheet of clay, 
which prevents the amalgam from adhering to the iron. 
The amalgam should then be carefully introduced and 
spread evenly. The pipe connecting the back of the retort 
with the condenser must be cleared of all obstructions, and 
the amalgam should be so spread that by no possible mis- 
chance can this pipe become choked, as an explosion would 
probably result, filling the retorting room with the poisonous 




Fig. 38. 



fumes of mercury and greatly endangering its occupants 
To avoid danger, the heating should be very slow at first. 
After the cover has been put on with a luting of clay or a 
mixture of clay and wood ashes and securely clamped, the 
fire is lighted and the heat gradually raised, a dark red heat 
being all that is necessary to volatilize the quicksilver. 
Towards the end of the operation, the heat is raised to a 
cherry red, until distillation ceases. The retort is then 
allowed to cool, and, when cold, is opened. During the 
operation, the condensing coil at the back of the retort 
should be kept cool by a continuous supply of fresh water 
entering from the lower end of the box which contains it, 
while the discharge of warm water is effected above. The 



122 PLACER MINING. 

retort bullion is cut or broken into pieces and melted in a 
well-annealed black lead crucible, and the gold cast into 
bars. 

DISTRIBUTION OF GOLD II* SLUICES. 

In sluicing, the greater part (usually about 80 per cent.) 
of the gold caught is found in the first 200 feet. For ex- 
ample, of a claim yielding $63,000 on a hundred days' run, 
$54,000 was obtained in the first 150 feet, and $3,000 from 
the undercurrents. The first undercurrent, 790 feet from 
the head of the sluice, yielded 50 per cent, of the total 
amount taken from the undercurrents. The second under- 
current, 78 feet distant below the first, with a drop of 40 
feet between them, contained 33 per cent, of the gross 
undercurrent yield. The last undercurrent was 98 feet from 
the second, with a drop of 50 feet between them ; its yield 
was about $500. Sometimes about a hundred feet at the 
head of the sluice is covered with gravel during the greater 
part of a run ; in such cases, the gold is found farther down. 

LOSS OF MERCURY. 

A certain loss of quicksilver is unavoidable in placer 
mining, the amount depending on the grade, length, and 
condition of the sluices, the character of the material washed, 
the amount of water used, and the length of the run. The 
loss may be reduced by lengthening the sluice line, keeping 
joints tight, and careful cleaning and chinking. On large 
enterprises it is usually in the vicinity of one pound of 
mercury for every $100 worth of gold recovered. 

LOSS OF GOLD. 

The loss of gold is inversely proportionate to the size of 
the grains, the length and grade of sluices and undercur- 
rents, the depth of the water, and the completeness of the 
breaking up of the pay dirt. Frequent drops in a line assist 



PLACER MINING. L23 

in disintegrating the gravel and allow of shorter sluices. In 
washing hard cement banks, it is advisable to use plenty of 
powder to thoroughly shatter the bank, and large lumps of 
cement should be broken up before being introduced into 
the sluice. However carefully the operation be conducted, 
there is invariably some loss of fine gold ; the last under- 
current will always catch some gold, and the tailings will 
show a trace. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

EXAMPLES OF PLACERS— THE ALMA 
PLACER. 

As an example of an ordinary hydraulic placer mine, we 
may take that of the Green Mountain Company, at Alma, 
South Park, Colorado. In South Park, at an altitude of 
10,000 feet above the sea-level, is an extensive area of placer 
ground, located along the banks of the South Platte River, 
and extending from the base of Mount Lincoln to Fairplay, 
a distance of over 20 miles. This area consists of rolling 
banks of pebbles, boulders, gravel, and sand on both sides 
of the stream, covered with grass and a few spare trees, and 
sloping up gently towards the mountain sides for an average 
width of about half a mile. Portions of these placer banks 
have long been worked, both at Alma and Fairplay, but the 
banks are far from exhausted. The principal hydraulic 
workings are at Alma, where also the banks are thickest, 
owing to the confluence of tributary canyons and streams 
at that point. A powerful body of water is at hand during 
the summer months, and the beds are worked continuously, 
night and day, during the season. 

The main source whence the gold originated was doubt- 
less in numerous large, partially developed quartz veins in 
granite, at the head of the ravine above Montgomery, at 
the foot of Mount Lincoln, where are the headwaters and 
main sources of the South Platte River. Besides these 
gold-bearing veins, the quartzites and porphyries of the 
adjacent region may have contributed a certain amount of 
gold to the placer from gold disseminated generally through- 
out their mass. The head of the canyon below Mount 



PLACER MINING. 125 

Lincoln was the starting point of the glacier that carved out 
the valley upon which the Alma placers lie, the line of which 
is now occupied by the Platte River. 

The character of the predominant pebbles in the placers 
— quartzites, granite, and porphyry — suggests the rocks at 
the head of the canyon as the principal source of the gold. 
The summit of Mount Lincoln is 14,400 feet above the sea- 
level, and about 4,000 feet above the valley of the Platte. 
The east face of the peak descends in a steep cliff of massive 
granite, capped by quartzites and limestones carrying inter- 
bedded sheets of porphyry. The face of the granite cliff is 
traversed by a great number of wide, parallel fissure-veins 
of quartz and feldspar, carrying more or less gold and 
pyrites. The valley below is U shaped, betokening the path- 
way of an ancient glacier, and scooped out of granite by 
the ice. The rocks over which the glacier passed in its 
downwards course are rounded, polished, and grooved, form- 
ing what are called " glacial sheepbacks." These form the 
pavement of the upper part of the ravine. Near the head, 
a violent stream, whose source is in a small lake in a glacial 
amphitheater still higher up, descends in bounding water- 
falls — the source of the Platte. Below where the falls 
plunge into the valley is a small, shallow lake, half filled 
with gravel, supposed to contain much gold scooped out 
from the veins in the upper part of the canyon, and a scheme 
is projected to drain the lake and work the gravel by a cof- 
fer-dam and underground sluice tunnel, the water and 
debris from the washing passing through the coffer-dam 
and out through the sluices in the tunnel. The hollows at 
the base of the waterfall, contrary to what might be sup- 
posed, are not found to be very productive. From the lake, 
we look down on numerous traces of the work and pathway 
of the ancient glacier. Vast bodies of huge boulders rise 



126 



PLACER MINING. 



on the slopes at the base of the mountain to a height of 
nearly 1,000 feet above the stream, with here and there an 
exceptionally large block dropped by the melting ice on the 
top of the moraines on either side of the stream. Between 
the moraines, the river runs through a long meadow, with con- 
tinuous banks of placer material on either side from 50 to 
200 feet in height. The surface of these morainal banks is 
undulated, rising and falling in smooth, grassy swells, like the 
waves of mid-ocean. These banks are composed of ' ' modified 
drift "; that is, the rough, angular blocks left by the glacier 

have been worked over by 
the stream, pounded and 
broken up, and in part re- 
duced to gravel. When 
exposed in section, as at 
Alma, they exhibit the 
structure from surface 
grass roots down to bed- 
rock shown in Fig. 39. 
The structure in detail 
fig. 39. is as follows: First, a foot 

or two of black turf, in which there is little gold; below 
that, a foot or two of clay with pebbles in it, and then a few 
feet of sandy layers, irregularly bedded, in dovetailing 
streaks, as if formed by eddies and currents, and, likewise, 
comparatively poor; the remainder, to bed-rock, 30 to 50 
feet, is composed of subangular and rounded pebbles and 
boulders of all sizes, from a fraction of an inch to a yard in 
diameter, cemented together by gravel, sand, clay, and, in 
places, by iron oxide, into a tolerably fine conglomerate, 
which can only be successfully attacked by the point of the 
pick or the all-destroying Giant nozzle. These banks are 
continuous down both sides of the creek for several miles, 




PLACER MINING. 



127 



and are thickest at Alma, opposite the outlet of the tribu- 
tary canyons, Buckskin and Mosquito. Here is the site of 
one of the oldest working placers in Colorado. The banks 
have been cut back for a long distance from the river, pre- 
senting a face of vertical cliff 70 feet in height and about a 
mile in length, channeled by narrow ravines and gashes, 
from the inroads of the Giants and the cutting back of 
ditch and flume waterfalls. Some of these cuts are short, 
narrow gashes, not penetrating far into the hills; others 
lead, through long, narrow, ravines into wide, open amphi- 
theaters surrounded by channeled cliffs, while the center is 
occupied by piles of large boulders thrown out from the 
sluices and stacked up in the course of the work. Winding- 
through these paths of debris may be seen the remains of 
the old, abandoned gravel sluices, telling of work done 
long ago. 

To enter one of these amphitheaters, where the work is still 
actively progressing, we approach by way of one of the ravines 
penetrating the hill. From this ravine issue two long, 




snake-like gravel sluices, shown in Fig. 40, debouching on 
to the open river bottom and natural dumping ground by 
many radiating, short-curved tributary sluices. The water 



128 



PLACER MINING. 



rushes with great speed and force along the wooden bottom 
of the sluices, and the bigger boulders can be heard rolling 
and bumping over the wooden riffle blocks which pave the 
bottom. We follow up these sluices through- the ravine for 
over a thousand feet, till it opens in a broad amphitheater 
200 feet wide by 70 feet deep. Here operations are in full 
blast. Several flume waterfalls, shown in Fig. 41, descend 
the steep bank at the head of the amphitheater, at varying 
distances apart, each one cutting back rapidly a sharp, nar- 
row ravine or channel for itself from grass roots nearly to 




Fig. 41. 

bed-rock. These waterfalls, each fed by its own branch 
from the main ditch on the bank above, cut the bank into a 
series of -parallel blocks of ground. Against the sides and 
faces of these insulated blocks, two Giant nozzles direct 
their powerful columns of water with crumbling effect, and 
the partially cemented material fades rapidly before them 
as mass after mass is undermined and topples into the ref- 
use stream, and thence is hurried into the gaping mouths 
of the gravel sluices. Giants also speed the boulders and 
gravel on their way by occasionally lending their force to 
that of the refuse stream which flows from beneath the 



PLACER MINING. 12D 

waterfalls. Thus sand, gravel, and boulders are washed 
into the gravel sluices, the bottoms of which are lined with 
riffles of short cross-sections of the trunks of pitch-pine 
trees, placed close together, like rows of lozenges, or like a 
Nicholson block pavement. Both big and little boulders 
and gravel roll rapidly over this block pavement, and the 
gold, by its gravity, drops to the bottom and is caught be- 
tween the interstices of the blocks and retained there. Its 
retention and deposition are further aided by throwing in 
quicksilver, which, by its affinity for gold, collects the finer 
particles in its soft, heavy, silvery mass. While the boulders 
and gravel soon find their way to the natural dumping 
ground on the open river bottom, the gold in its travel stops 
long before that point is reached. 

In the center of the amphitheater, a tall derrick, driven by 
a 10-foot Pelton wheel with an undershot nozzle, moves a 
long arm slowly around over the area. The use of this der- 
rick will presently be apparent. One of the flumes having 
been stopped and its attendant waterfall having ceased, 
and the Giant nozzle being directed elsewhere, the pathway 
of the refuse stream becomes comparatively dry. Then men 
climb into it and pick out the larger boulders, too large to 
pass through the gravel sluices — some of them being so 
large as to require blasting. Then the long arm of the der- 
rick swings around, and the boulders are piled into a large 
stone-boat and carried around to a convenient dumping 
ground on either side of the gravel sluices. The largest 
boulders being thus removed, the gravel and small pebbles 
become more exposed, and the Giants are again brought to 
bear on these, till at last bed-rock sandstone appears, full 
of cracks and crevices, forming by its gentle dip and in- 
equalities natural riffles and lodging places for a portion of 
the gold. The bed-rock cleaners now dig up and shovel 



130 PLACER MINING. 

into the sluice the rotten surface of the sandstone to a 
depth of a foot or so, or to such a depth as experience has 
proved that gold occurs. They probe the cracks in bed- 
rock with their knives and brush the rocks with small brushes 
and pick out any stray nuggets that may be concealed. In 
the bed of the stream descending from the flume, men are 
also at work with long-handled shovels, ground sluicing, or 
helping along and removing out of the way some of the 
boulders, so as to keep the water in as definite a channel as 
possible and prevent it from spreading. The ravine, which 
is 1,000 feet long, and the amphitheater, 200 feet wide by 
70 feet deep, were both excavated within six months. 

PRELIMINARY WORK AND PROSPECTING OF THE PLACER. 

Before undertaking this enterprise, the ground was well 
prospected and the presence of gold in paying quantities 
assured. Shafts and prospecting holes were dug down to 
bed-rock to ascertain the depth of the formation. Prospect- 
ing by panning was also carried on along the exposed sides 
of the gulches. The water supply was considered, and the 
ditch and flume planned with a view to its power over the 
underlying bed-rock. The grade of the ditch was also 
considered, for if the grade is too great the water cuts and 
breaks its banks. Three-eighths of an inch to a rod was 
found to be a good grade. Penstocks and boxes were made, 
and pipes 14 inches in diameter attached. The Giant noz- 
zles, having been attached to the pipes and firmly braced 
to strong wooden platforms on the ground, began to play on 
some natural exposure of the bank, while the ditch flumes 
commenced their work of cutting back ravines and blocking 
off the ground to be later broken down by the Giants. The 
gravel sluices were constructed for carrying the pebbles, 
gravel, and gold, with a general grade or inclination towards 



PLACER MINING. 13J 

the natural dumping ground on the river bed, and the rest 
is as already described. 

RELATIVE RICHNESS OF DIFFERENT ZONES OF THE BANK. 

The richness of the bank appears to depend upon various 
conditions. The fine, eddy, top sand is seldom rich, the 
best gold being in the coarser material or on and in bed- 
rock. The gravel is sometimes cemented by iron rust to the 
consistency of rock. Black sand occurs here and there, 
richest where rusty. There are often peculiar courses in the 
sand currents, and turnings and windings as in river courses. 
As many as three different periods of deposition of gravel 
may be observed. 

RESERVOIR, DITCH, FLUMES, ETC. 

The reservoir up the river, supplying the ditch, covers 
about 5 acres and is 10 feet deep. The dam is made of 
gravel and brush, cribbed with timber and having a gate. 
The ditch that leads to the highest gravel banks is two 
miles long and carries about 2,000 miner's inches of water. 
It is 12 feet wide and 3 feet deep, and flumed on trestles, 
at one place, for 210 feet. The flume is of boards 12 feet 
in length, of sawed pine timber, forming boxes, built with 
frames 4 in. X 1 in. ; the floor boards are 1-J-inch material, 
sides 1^ inches; the flume is 6 feet wide and 3 feet deep. 

At the end of the wooden flume, on solid rock, is a flume 
50 feet long, at right angles to the main flume. From this 
there are four openings to smaller ditch flumes, which dis- 
tribute the water to the general workings. The grade of 
the ditch is three-eighths of an inch to the rod. From the 
main ditch, a branch ditch leads to the penstock or sand box. 
From that, two pipes are laid, which, at the penstock, are 22 
inches in diameter, but taper gradually toward the Giants 
to 10 inches in diameter. These pipes are each 500 feet 



132 



PLACER MINING. 



long. There are two Giants, of the size known as 
No. 2. The discharge pipe of these is feet long. The de- 
flector, by which the man in charge directs the nozzle in 
any direction he pleases, is screwed on the end. The de- 
flector works on the principle of a ball and socket; where 
the discharge pipe connects with the main casting there is 
also a ball and socket, so that it, too, can be moved to right 
or left, and up or down. Leather is used to prevent leak- 
age at the joints, and sawdust is thrown into the sand box 
to stop leaks in the pipes. Giants, Chiefs, or Monitors, as 
they are variously called, are used for cutting down the 
banks. The water that is not used by the pipes is allowed 

to run over the highest part of the 
gravel bank to cut down and carry 
away gravel to the sluices. The pipes 
use 200 inches of water to each Giant. 
The ditches carry 2,000. The volume 
carries the gravel into the sluices. 
The sluices are 3 feet wide by 4 
feet high, or deep, paved with round 
block riffles 8 inches thick and of vary- 
ing widths, packed on the bottom of 
the sluices with small pieces of rock. 
(Fig. 42.) So great is the force of 
the water in these sluices, that bould- 
fig. 42. ers 100 pounds in weight are some- 

times carried from end to end. The velocity is about 25 
miles per hour. The dip, slope, or grade is 4 inches to 
every 12 feet, or 33J inches to every 100 feet. The sluice is 
laid on bed-rock, which is sometimes cut down to admit it. 
The curves of the gravel sluices are made like those of a 
railroad, raising the outer side of the curve. There are two 
parallel sluices 30 feet apart. When these two main arteries 





PLACER MINING. L33 

reach the bed of the river, which is their natural dumping 
ground, branches are formed so as to spread out the material 
in a fan shape, and these branches are extended as the ma- 
terial accumulates. (Fig. 40.) 

The sluices are '4,000 feet each in length. The riffles 
protect the boards in the bottom from wear and tear of the 
gravel and boulders. Old riffles are left in the bottom of 
the branches where no gold is collected, for this purpose. 
The gold is mostly found deposited in the first 400 feet of 
each sluice. The derrick or hoisting gear is run by water, 
hoisting big rocks in a stone-boat by a gin block and chains 
Water is led by an 8-inch pipe from the sand boxes to an 
undershot Pelton wheel with If -inch nozzle. The wheel is 
10 feet in diameter, and the drum works on the V principle. 

CLEANING UF>. 

About 2 ounces of quicksilver to each ounce of gold in 
the riffles is thrown into the flume. In a clean-up, which 
occurs at regular intervals, the riffles are first taken out and 
then water is let on to wash everything clear. The packing 
of small rocks is taken out with twelve-tined forks. The 
floor is then cleaned, the gold usually being all collected by 
the quicksilver at about 200 feet from the entrance of the 
flume. The quicksilver is shoveled out, separated from, 
black sand, and carried in kettles to the retorting office; 
there it is retorted and prepared for the mint. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

EXAMPLES OF PLACERS— THE ROSCOE 
PLACER. 

As an example of placer mining by turning the course of 
a river by means of wide flumes, and leaving the river bed 
dry and bare for a space, for operations down to bed- 
rock, we may cite that of the Roscoe placer in Clear Creek 
Canyon, Colorado. Clear Creek Canyon is one of the 
steepest and grandest of the Frost Range. It is cut through 
granite rocks for a linear distance of some 40 miles, to an 
average depth of 1,000 feet. About 13 miles from its out- 
let on the plain, the creek forks, one branch leading up 
towards the gold-mining region of Central, the other to the 
gold and silver region of Idaho Springs. The main creek 
receives the drainage of two gold-bearing districts. At 
Central, in addition to gold from the mines, veins, and rocks 
direct, the creek brings down a great deal of flour gold, the 
refuse of old stamp mills, which by their crude methods lost 
in the past upwards of 40 per cent, of gold, together with a 
great deal of amalgam. This refuse matter has been 
accumulating from the mills alone for the past thirty years, 
not to mention what has been derived from the rocks theiru 
selves by the ordinary process of nature. Miners and 
prospectors in past times obtained a great deal of gold from 
shallow surface washings, without attempting to reach the 
deep-lying but coveted bed-rock, where the most of the gold 
was reasonably expected to lie. 

Near the location of the placer, the canyon is at its deepest 
and narrowest. Several huge veins of quartz and feldspar, 



PLACER MINING. L35 

doubtless carrying more or less gold, cross the canyon from 
side to side. It is by the erosion and breaking down of 
these great veins, which originally stretched across the 
canyon like a dyke, that we enter the grand portal leading to 
the Roscoe placer. Originally, the great feldspar vein stood 
as a natural dam across the waters of the creek, until they 
undermined and broke through it, and the vein collapsed 
into the creek in huge boulders, over which the waters now 
dash in foaming waterfalls, with a sudden drop of 30 feet. 

This natural dam was selected as an excellent point for 
dumping the material to be dug out immediately above it. 
The debris thrown over this fall would be rapidly disinte- 
grated and carried down stream by the torrents; so nature 
supplied one of the first requisites for enterprises of this 
sort — a good dumping ground. Above the stone dam is a 
stretch of a couple of miles of comparatively slow-moving 
and shallow water in a natural widening of the creek bottom, 
underlaid by deep gravel. The railroad runs on the bank, 
convenient to the placer, and the grade was also convenient 
for laying alongside of it the pipe lines to run the Giants, etc. 
The opposite bank was low, and the slope gentle and well 
adapted for constructing the great flume and ditch to carry 
off the waters of the creek. 

PRELIMINARY PLAN AND WORK. 

Before commencing operations, the ground was pros- 
pected by shafts down to. bed-rock, and the presence of gold 
assured. The general plan of the work to be done was as 
follows : 

First, a wide and long flume was to be constructed on the 
south bank, capable of carrying off all the water of the creek, 
which was to be turned into it by means of a dam, laying 
bare a mile or more of the river bottom. At the lower end 



136 



PLACER MINING. 



of the property, just above the stone dam, a pit was to be 
dug to bed-rock. In this a Ludlum gravel lifter was to be 
placed — a large funnel-shaped pipe, up which water, gold, 
gravel, and stones would be carried by the force of a Giant 
nozzle below it into an elevated gravel flume on the surface 
above — to which would also be attached several undercurrent 
sluices for catching the finest gold. A pipe line, some two 
or three miles long, with a head of over 100 feet and carrying 
1,000 inches of water, would give the needed power to the 
Giants in the pit. As the workings would advance up the 
creek, the abandoned pit would receive the dump of the work 
in progress. 

BUILDING DITCH AND FLUME. 

Two things had to be done simultaneously: one, to build 
the big ditch and flume to carry off the water of the river 
and leave the bed dry; the other to build a pipe line to get 
sufficient head of water to work the nozzles and sand pumps 
at the places chosen for excavation. By a natural widening 
of the river bank and its encroachment on the stream at one 
place, the channel of the stream is locally contracted. 
Starting with this natural advantage, a temporary dam 

and flume was built of 
sacks filled with sand, to 
keep back the water till a 
more substantial ''triangu- 
lar " dam, of timber par- 
titions filled with stones, 
could be built. Thus a 
JlT ground flume was construct- 
ed, as shown in Fig. 43. 
fig. 43. First, a pile or wall of sand- 

bags next to the water of the ditch, and then behind that a 
framework of timber with triangular partitions filled with 



1 

II 




PLACER MIXING. 



L37 




FIG. 44. 



138 PLACER MINING. 

stones and pebbles, faced, or " rip-rapped," on the outer side 
with heavier stones, until the nature of the ground should 
require a flume of sawed timber to be constructed, 

This flume that carries off the river water is 10 feet wide, 
6|- feet high, and 2,600 feet long, with a capacity of about 
32,000 gallons per minute. The bents are 4 in. x 8 in. and 10 
feet long, with braces on the outer side at an angle of 11-J- . 
The braces are 2-in. X 8-in. plank, 5 feet long, bolted to the 
4-in. X 8-in. sill and upright post. The flooring is 1 inches 
thick, the boards 12 inches wide and 16 feet long. The flume 
is not straight, but follows the course of thestream, the floor 
being elevated on the outside of the curves an amount cor- 
responding to the degree of curvature, as on a railroad track, 
making the water run level. The grade on the curve is 1^ 
inches to 16 feet. When the flume is straight, the grade is 
f inch to 16 feet. The angle at which the floor is cut for 
joining is not over 30 degrees. The sides are made of 2-inch 
boards 16 inches wide. 

WATER-POWER AND PIPE LINE. 

The next matter to be attended to was to get sufficient 
head of water for the Giants. To effect this, they had to go 
three miles up the river to a point where the descent of the 
stream was somewhat steep and rapid. There they built an 
intake flume of wood, 6 feet wide, 4 feet deep, and 800 feet 
long, to a penstock or sand box connecting with a wooden- 
stave pipe 48 inches in diameter at its widest point. To enter 
the penstock the water passes through a screen or iron 
grating, which catches the coarse rubbish, such as leaves, 
sticks, etc., floating in the water, and the overflow passes 
through gates on the south side. The main current passes 
into the penstock, which is 8 feet square and 16 feet deep. 
At the bottom is a well which collects any debris, so the 



PLACER MINING. 



139 



I §5R| ' *$ 

la ^ 

1 I 






- ii 



■ 







140 



PLACER MIXING. 



'M 



M 




water passes clean and pure 
through the penstock into the 
48-inch pipe. This pipe is made 
of staves or boards of pine, band- 
ed with round steel hoops. (See 
Fig. 44.) After leaving the pen- 
stock, the pipe is buried for a 
distance of about 100 yards un- 
der a stone embankment, and 
passes by an arch under the rail- 
road track to its junction with 
the metal pipe. Where it has to 
withstand the greatest pressure, 
it is closely banded. The pipe 
diminishes gradually in diam- 
eter, till, from 48 inches at the 
penstock, it becomes 22 inches 
at its junction with the metal 
pipe, which also, in its course, 
diminishes to 16 inches. The 
steel pipe is three-eighths of a 
mile long. A still smaller pipe, 
12 inches in diameter, connects 
with this and runs parallel with 
the main pipe, forming two pipes, 
for one-eighth of a mile. One 
of these pipes is for the Giant 
nozzle, the other to supply the 
sand pump for elevating the 
o- r a v e 1 from the bottom of 

o 

the excavation into the gold 
gravel sluices. The pressure on 
these pipes at the nozzle is 87 



PLACER MINING. 



141 



pounds per square inch, and they will throw a column of 
water 165 feet from a nozzle 4 inches in diameter. With a 
closed pipe the pressure would be 189 pounds. 

Fig. 45 gives a general idea of the lower end of the works, 
and Fig. 46 shows a panoramic view of the whole plant, 
from the intake flume, far up the canyon, to the penstock, 
and from the penstock along the line of big pipes to their 
final connection, at the lower end of the placer, with the 
Giant nozzles, and on the opposite side of the river the big 
flume carrying the water of the river out of its natural 
course and leaving the bed dry for operations. 

The pit, above the stone dam, is also shown, as completed, 
in Fig. -47. Giant nozzles play against the sides and into 
the bottom of this pit, washing down the debris of the banks 




Fig. 47. 



and excavating the bottom, while gravel elevators and 
water-lifters force up the material excavated to an elevated 
sluice, to be winnowed of its coarse gold; and thence the 
gravel passes over a finer-gathering, broad undercurrent 



142 PLACER MINING. 

sluice; then, again, by a narrow flume, winding among the 
big boulders and through narrow crevices in the rocks, to 
a final undercurrent, where the finest material of all is 
collected on burlap, or sacking material. 

DETAIL DESCRIPTION OF THE WORK. 

It is necessary to explain the details of the work which 
the accompanying sketches represent, as it is more or less 
complicated. After all the machinery, flumes, sluices, 
pipes, and Giants were in place, the excavation of the pit 
was commenced and carried on down to bed-rock, with the 
aid of the Giants and elevators. When the Giant nozzles 
had been brought to play, the material, as the pit deepened, 
was forced up through the gravel elevators into the gravel 
sluice. 

THE LIDUM ELEVATOR. 

The Ludlum gravel elevator, shown in Fig. 48, is a big 
steel pipe somewhat funnel shaped towards the lower portion, 




Fig. 48. 



the broad end of which descends into the bottom of the pit, 
where both water and gravel accumulate from the work of 
the Giants. Directly underneath the end of the elevator, 
at a distance below it of 16 inches, is embedded a Giant 



PLACER MINING. 143 

nozzle, together with a portion of its pipe, receiving a 
powerful pressure from one of the main pipes on the bank. 
As the gravel and stones roll down they are directed by a 
box in upon this nozzle, the lower portion of which is en- 
closed in bed-rock when bed-rock is attained. The stream 
carries the smaller boulders and debris up the funnel of the 
elevator and into the flume above, where a pipe communi- 
cating with the main flume sends a flood of water into the 
gravel sluice to help push along the boulders and gravel that 
have thus come up. The other pipe that is also seen enter- 
ing the end of the box of the sluice and passing down in a 
steep, slanting direction into the pit is a Ludlum water- 
lifter, sometimes called an "elevator pump." It works 
somewhat like the gravel elevator, a vacuum being formed 
in the lower portion of the pipe, drawing the water of the pit 
up into it. The power-pressure nozzle runs about a foot up 
into the pipe. The purpose of this pump is to drain the pit 
of the water accumulating from the Giants and in other 
ways. So, while the Giants tear down the banks, the eleva- 
tors carry the water, gravel, and gold up into the gravel 
sluices. The main gravel sluice is a narrow trough or box, 
208 feet long by 48 inches wide and 3 feet deep, laid down at 
a gentle inclination on the top of the surface of the creek 
bed from the lower end of the excavation. It is made of 
strong, inch boards and paved on the bottom with square, 
S-inch blocks of pine wood set on end, so that the grain is 
uppermost. These block riffles are laid in rows quite close 
together across the bottom of the sluice, from side to side. 
Between each set or row of blocks is laid a narrow strip of 
wood, 3 inches high by ^ inch thick. 

In laying block riffles, the blocks in the first row are 
placed closely side by side. Then the strip of wood is nailed 
along the lowest part of them with headless nails, not driven 



144 PLACER MINING. 

home, but protruding a little, so that when the next row of 
riffles is laid down and driven up, the protruding nails sink 
into the blocks and hold them fast while the strip is being 
laid against the lower side. The gravel, as it is being borne 
along in the sluice, drops its gold, which is collected in 
these cracks or gaps between the riffles, prepared to re- 
ceive it. 

On the side of this main sluice, and connected with it at 
the head, are two smaller side sluices, a little below it and 
running parallel to it. These are lined with Brussels carpet 
instead of riffle blocks. This carpet collects the finer gold, 
while the main flume usually collects the coarser material, 
boulders, gravel, and gold. 

Towards the end of the main sluice a few of the block 
riffles are omitted and a grating substituted, made the full 
width of the sluice, with bars spaced f inch apart and 
beveled on the bottom. This grating allows only loose 
stones or gravel below a certain size to pass, together with 
finer material, into the next sluice, called an "undercur- 
rent." This is a broad, shallow box, similar to that shown 
in Fig. 36, tipped at an inclination of 6 inches in 24 feet, 
the latter being the length of the undercurrent, which is 12 
feet wide. The bottom of this box is lined with a peculiar 
kind of riffle. These riffles consist of narrow slats or strips 
of wood, laid down on the bottom, across the width of the 
box, and on top of each slat is a piece of strap iron, nailed 
flat, whose edge overlaps the slat on both sides, but only 
slightly on the lower side. The water passing through 
these moves to and fro, like an endless pulley, from riffle to 
riffle, dropping its gold among them by the eddies so caused. 
There still remains a certain amount of very fine material, 
carrying even finer gold, which escapes this first undercur- 
rent and must not be lost. So from this a narrow flume, 



PLACER MINING. 145 

winding through a passage in the rock, leads into a still 
larger, longer, and wider undercurrent, which catches the 
finest material of all — in this case composed largely of finely 
comminuted pyrites, the tailings from the mills. This long, 
wide undercurrent, 45 feet long by 24 feet wide, is divided 
into a series of compartments or boxes, set longitudinally. 
The divisions are formed by long boards a foot deep. At 
the bottom of these boards a narrow strip of wood is laid 
and battened down on the burlap, or sacking material, which 
lines the bottom of the box and receives the gold. The 
burlap carpets are drawn off by rollers on swivels and trans- 
ported to a wooden tank, where they pass over a series of 
rollers, laying them conveniently open for inspection and 
cleaning. Every visible particle of gold is collected, and 
the rest drops into the water in the tank. Through the 
middle of this undercurrent sluice passes a small flume with 
perforated plates at the upper end. This flume is intended 
to catch and dispose of some of the coarser material that 
may have passed through the upper undercurrent, and what 
finer gold there may be in it drops through the perforated 
plates into the general undercurrent, the coarser rubbish 
being carried out to the river. On cleaning-up days, which 
occur at intervals, the block riffles are taken up and care- 
fully inspected for gold. This leaves the bottom of the 
sluice uncovered, and on this a good deal of gravel, gold, 
and quicksilver has collected. This is carefully shoveled 
into buckets and examined, the gold laid aside, and the 
quicksilver amalgam containing gold placed in retorts; 
so also in the other undercurrents, together with the 
Brussels carpet and burlaps in both sluices and under- 
currents. 

The bed of the stream, as at present excavated by the 



146 



PLACER MINING. 




imM-^ J ^'-^^'^M 



pit, shows a section of the placer. (Fig. 49.) The great 
loose rocks, by forming the so-called stone dam across the 
stream, produced a natural gathering place and stoppage for 

all the boulders and rub- 
bish brought down by 
floods from above. Some 
of the boulders are several 
feet in diameter and have 
to be blasted before they 
can be removed. Mixed 
fig. 49. with these boulders are 

many stumps and logs of driftwood, some of which show 
the marks of beavers. Half way down the section is a dark 
line, formed by a thin bed of peat, marking the origin of an 
old surface soil. Above this are belts of irregularly bedded 
gravel and sand, showing the action of shifting currents. 
Gold has been found all the way down from surface to bed- 
rock, the coarsest and most abundant gold being on bed- 
rock itself. They are obliged to wall up portions of the 
loose sides of the pit with cobblestones, as the jarring of 
passing trains is likely to shake down boulders, endangering 
the lives of the workmen and gradually undermining the 
adjacent railroad tracks. 



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To any miner or prospector who reads it for a year and is not satisfied that he has 
received more than $2 worth of information valuable in his business and which he 
could not have obtained from any other source, we will return the price of his 
subscription. 

Send for free sample copy. Address 

— • • • The Pub " she im- Mines and Minerals, 

SCRANTON, PA. 






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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



6 002 954 423 2 ^ 




